Emily's Curse
by PearlGirl017
Summary: The Summary is the first chapter of the book. This is my second story, so I hope it is as good as my first one apparently is.
1. Summary

That was the first time I saw it, what I have come to think of as the burning look. It was as if his eyes stared so violently into mine that I feared they would cause me to combust.

I found I could not speak, I only shivered and nodded.

Emily, the darkly seductive High Priestess at the House of Night, wasn't always a powerful vampire, but she has always been beautiful. Raised in turn-of-the-century Chicago, her beauty makes her the pray of unwanted attention and abuse, leaving her with scars, the kind that never heal - and a Darkness that will eventually need to find its way out.

So when she is Marked and gains strength, both physical and magical, she turns her anger into power and looks for a way to regain what was stolen from her.

From victim to High Priestess, beautiful young woman, to powerful seductress. Emily's journey begins . . .


	2. Chapter 1: January 15th 1893

_This is not a diary._ I loathe the very thought of compiling my thoughts and actions in a locked book, secreted away as if they were precious jewels.

I know my thoughts are not precious jewels.

I have begun to suspect my thoughts are quite mad.

 _That_ is why I feel compelled to record them. It could be that in the re-reading, sometime in the future, I will discover why these horrible things have befallen me.

Or, I will discover that I have, indeed, lost my mind.

If that is the case, then this will serve as a record of the onset of my paranoia and madness so as to lay the foundation to discover a cure.

Do I want to be cured?

Perhaps that is a question that would be best set aside for now.

First, let me begin when everything changed. It was not on this, the first date of my journal. It was two and a half months ago, on the first day of November, in the year eighteen ninety-two. That was the morning my Mother died.

Even here in the silent pages of this journal I hesitate to recall that terrible morning. My Mother died in a tide of blood, which surged from within her following the birth of the small, lifeless body of my brother, Barrett, named after Father. It seemed to me then, as it does today, that my Mother simply gave up when she saw that Barrett would not draw breath. It was as if even the life force that sustained her could not bear the loss of her precious only son.

Or was the full truth that she could not bear to face father after the loss of _his_ precious, only son?

That question would not have entered my mind before that morning. Until the morning my Mother died, the questions that most often entered my mind were focused on how I might persuade mother to allow me to purchase another one of the new cycling costumes that were all the rage, or how I could make my hair look exactly like a Gibson girl.

If I had thought of my Father before the morning of my Mother's death, it was as most of my girlfriends thought of their Fathers-as a distant and somewhat intimidating patriarch. In my particular case, Father only praised me through Mother's comments. Actually, before Mother's death, he seemed to rarely notice me at all.

Father was not in the room when Mother died. The doctor had proclaimed the birthing process too vulgar for a man to witness, especially not a man of the import of Barrett .H. Wheiler, president of the First National Bank of Chicago.

And me? Barrett and Alice Wheiler's daughter? The doctor did not mention vulgarity of childbirth to me. Actually, the doctor did not even notice me until after Mother was dead and Father had brought me to his attention.

"Emily, you will not leave me. You will wait with me until the doctor arrives and then remain there, in the window seat. You should not go blindly into it as did I." Mother had commanded me in that soft voice of hers, which made everyone who did not truly know her believe she was softheaded and no more than a beautiful, compliant bobble on Father's arm.

"Yes, Mother," I had said with a nod, and done as she had ordered.

I remember sitting, still as a shadow, in the unlit window seat across from the bed in Mother's opulent bedchamber. I saw everything. It did not take her long to die.

There was so much blood. Barrett had been born in blood-a small, still, gore-covered creature. He had looked like a grotesque broken doll. After the spasm that had expelled him from between Mother's legs, the blood did not stop. It kept surging and surging while my Mother wept tears as silent as her son. I knew she wept because she had turned her head away from the sight of the doctor wrapping the dead baby in linens. Mother's gaze met mine then.

I could not remain in the window seat. I rushed to the side of her bed and, while the doctor and his nurse futilely attempted to staunch the scarlet river that gushed from her, I gripped her hand and brushed the damp hair back from her forehead. Through my tears and my fear, I tried to murmur reassurance to her, and tell her that everything would be well once she rested.

Mother had squeezed my hand and whispered, "I am glad you are here with me at the end."

"No! You'll get better, Mother!" I'd protested.

"Sssh," she'd soothed. "Just hold my hand." Her voice had faded away then, but Mother's emerald eyes, which everyone said were so like mine, did not look away from me all the while her flushed face went shockingly white and her breath softened, caught, and then on a sigh, ceased altogether.

I'd kissed her hand then, I staggered back to my window seat, where I'd wept, unnoticed as the nurse performed the daunting job of disposing of the soaked linens and making Mother presentable for Father's viewing. But Father hadn't waited until Mother had been prepared for him. He'd pushed into the room, ignoring the protestations of the doctor.

"It is a boy, you say?" Father had not so much as glanced at the bed. Instead he had hurried to the bassinette, wherein lay the shrouded body of Barrett.

"It _was_ , indeed, a boy child," the doctor said somberly. "Born too soon, as I told you, sir. There was nothing to be done. His lungs were too weak. He never even drew breath. He did not utter one cry."

"Dead . . . silent." Father had wiped a hand wearily across his face. "Do you know when Emily was born she cried so lustily I heard her in the drawing room downstairs and believed her to be a boy?"

"Well, Mr. Wheiler, I know it is of little consolation after losing a son and a wife, but you do have a daughter, and through her the promise of heirs."

 _"She_ promised me heirs!" Father shouted, finally turning to look at Mother.

I must have made some small, wounded sound because Father's eyes instantly flicked to my window seat. They narrowed, and foe a moment it didn't seem he recognized me. Then he shook himself, as if trying to shiver something uncomfortable from his skin.

"Emily, why are you here?" Father's voice had sounded so angry that it seemed the question he'd meant to ask was much more than why I was in that room at that particular time.

"M-Mother bade me to s-stay," I had stuttered.

Your Mother is dead," he'd said, anger flattened to hard-edged truth.

"This is no place for a young lady." The doctor's face had been flushed when he faced my Father. "Beg pardon, Mr. Wheiler. I was too pre-occupied with the birth to notice the girl there.

"The fault was not yours, Doctor Fisher. My wife often did and said things that perplexed me. This is simply the last of them." Father made a dismissive gesture that took in the doctor, the maids and me. "Now leave me with Mrs. Wheiler, all of you."

I wanted to run from the room-to escape as quickly as possible, but my feet had gone numb and cold from sitting unmoving for so long and as I passed Father I'd stumbled. His hand caught me under the elbow. I'd looked up, startled.

His expression had suddenly appeared to soften as he gazed down at me. "You have your Mother's eyes."

"Yes." Breathless and lightheaded, that was I could say.

"This is as it should be. You are now the Lady of Wheiler House." Then Father released me and walked slowly, heavily, to the bloody bed.

As I closed the door behind me, I heard him begin to weep.

Thereby, also began my strange and lonely time of mourning. I moved numbly through the funeral and collapsed afterward. It was as if sleep had taken me over. I could not break free of it. For two full months I hardly left my bed. I did not care that I grew thin and pale. I did not care that the social condolence calls of my Mother's friends and their daughters were left unanswered. I did not notice that Christmas and New Year had come and gone. Mary, my Mother's lady's maid, whom I had inherited, begged, cajoled and scolded. I cared not at all.

It was the fifth day of January when Father broke me free of sleep's hold. My room had grown cold, so cold that my shivering had awakened me. The fire in my hearth had died and not been relit, so I pulled the sash attached to Mary's summoning bell, which tinkled all the way down in the servant's quarters in the bowels of the house, but she had not answered my call. I remember putting on my dressing gown, and thinking-briefly-how large it seemed and how very much it engulfed me. Making my way slowly from my third-floor bedchamber down the wide, wooden stairway, shivering, I searched for Mary. Father had emerged from his study as I came to the bottom of the stairs. When he first saw me his eyes were blank, then his expression registered surprise. Surprise follow by something I was almost certain was disgust.

"Emily, you look wretched! Thin and pale! Are you ill?"

Before I could answer, Mary was there, hurrying across the foyer toward us. I told ye, Mr. Wheiler. She's not been eating. I said she was doing nothin' but sleepin'. Wastin' away, she is." Mary had spoken briskly, her soft Irish accent more pronounced than usual.

"Well, this behaviour must end at once," Father had said sternly. "Emily, you will leave your bed. You will eat. You will take daily walks in the gardens. I simply will not have you looking emaciated. You are. After all, the Lady of Wheiler House, and my lady cannot look as if she were starving gutter waif."

His eyes had been hard. His anger had been intimidating, especially as I realized Mother wouldn't appear from her parlor, buzzing with distracting energy and shooing me away while pacifying Father with a smile and a touch.

I took an automatic step away from him, which only made his expression darker. "You have your Mother's look, but not her spunk. As irritating as it had been at times, I admired her spunk. I miss it."

"I-I miss Mother, too," I heard myself blurt.

"Of course ye do, dove," Mary had soothed. "'Tis only been little over two months.

"Then we have something in common after all." Father had ignored Mary completely and spoken as if she hadn't been there, nervously touching my hair and smoothing my dressing gown. "The loss of Alice Wheiler has created our commonality." He'd turned his head then, studying me. "You do have her look." Father stroked his dark beard and his gaze lost its hard, intimidating cast. "We shall have to make the best of her absence, you know."

"Yes, Father." I'd felt relieved at the gentling of his voice.

"Good, then I expect you to join me for dinner each evening, as you and your Mother used to. No more of this hiding in your room, starving your looks away.

I had smiled then, actually smiled. "I would like that," I'd said.

He'd grunted, slapped the newspaper he'd been holding across his arm, and nodded. "At dinner then," he'd said, and he walked past me, disappearing into the west wing of the house.

"I may be even a little hungry tonight," I'd said to Mary as she clucked at me and helped me up the stairway.

"'Tis good to see he's takin' an interest in ye, it is," Mary had whispered happily.

I'd hardly paid any attention to her. My only thought was that for the first time in a month I had something more than sleep and sadness to look forward to. Father and I shared a commonality!

I'd dressed carefully for dinner that evening, understanding for the first time how very thin I had become when my black mourning dress had to be pinned so that it did not unattractively loose. Mary combed my hair, twining it in a thick chignon that I thought made my newly thin face look much older than my fifteen years.

I will never forget the start it gave me when I entered the dining room and saw the two place setting-Father's, where he had always been at the head of the table-and mine, now placed at Mother's spot on Father's right.

He'd stood and held Mother's chair for me. I was sure as I sat that I could still smell her perfume-rose water, with just a hint of the lemon rinse she used in her hair to bring out the richness of her auburn highlights.

George, a Negro man served our dinner, (I don't like using the word Negro, I think it is a mean word, I only use it because it is olden times and that is what they were called, it gives it a more realistic tone.), and we began ladling from soup tureen. I'd worried that the silence would be terrible, but as Father began to eat, so, too, began his familiar words.

"The Columbian Exposition Committee has joined collectively behind Burnham; we are supporting him completely. I wondered, at first, that the man might be a touch mad-that he was attempting something unattainable, but his vision of Chicago's World's Columbian Exposition outshining Paris's splendour seems to be within reach, or at least his design appears to be sound-extravagant, but sound." He'd paused to take a healthy mouthful of the steak and potatoes that had replaced his empty soup bowl, and in that pause I could hear my Mother's voice.

"It's not extravagance what everyone is calling for?" and didn't realize until Father looked up at me that it had been I who had spoken and not, after all, the ghost of Mother. I froze under his sharp, dark-eyed scrutiny, wishing I'd kept silent and day-dreamed the meal away as I had done so many times in the past.

"How do you know what _everyone_ is calling for?" His keen, dark eyes were sharp on me, but his lips lifted slightly at the corners, just as he used to almost smile at Mother.

I remember feeling a rush of relief and smiling heartily in return. His question was one I'd heard him ask Mother more times than I could begin to count. I let her words reply for me. "I know you believe all woman do is talk, but they listen, too." I spoke more quickly and more softly than Mother, but Father's eyes had crinkled in the corners as he showed his approval and amusement.

"Indeed . . ." he'd said with a chuckle, cutting a large piece of bloody red meat and eating it as he were ravenous while he gulped down glasses of wine as red and dark as the liquid that ran from his meat. 'I must keep close tabs on Burnham, and his gaggle of architects, close tabs indeed. They are grotesquely over budget, and those workmen . . . always a problem . . . always a problem . . ." Father spoke as he chewed, dribbling bits of food and wine into his beard, a habit I knew Mother had loathed, and often rebuked him for.

I did not rebuke him, nor did I loathe his well-engrained habit. I simply forced myself to eat and to make the proper noises of appreciation as he spoke on and on about the importance of fiscal responsibility and the worry that the frail health of one of the lead architects was causing the board in general. After all, Mr. Root had already succumbed to pneumonia. Some said he'd been the driving force behind the entire project, and not Burnham at all.

The dinner sped quickly by until Father had finally eaten and spoken his fill. Then he had stood, and, as I had heard him wish uncountable times to my Mother, he'd said, "I shall retire to my library for a cigar and a whiskey. Have a pleasant evening, my dear, and I shall see you again, soon." I remember vividly feeling a great warmth for him as I thought, He _is treating me as if I were a woman grown-a true lady of the house!_

"Emily," he'd continued, even though he'd been rather wobbly and obviously well into his cups, "let us decide that as we have just begun a new year, it will mark a new beginning for the both of us. Shall we try to move forward together, my dear?"

Tears had come to my eyes, and I's smiled tremulously up at him. "Yes, Father, I would like that very much."

Then, quite unexpectedly, he had lifted my thin hand in his large one, bent over it, and kissed it-just exactly as he used to kiss Mother's hand in parting. Even though his lips and beard were moist from the wine and the food, I was still smiling and feeling ever so much like a lady when, holding my hand in his, he met my gaze.

That was the first time I saw it, what I have come to think of as _the burning look_. It was as if his eyes stared so violently into mine that I feared they would cause me to combust.

"Your eyes are your Mother's," he said. His words slurred and I smelled the sharp reek of his breath, heavily tainted by wine.

I found I could not speak. I only shivered and nodded.

Father dropped my hand then walked unsteadily from the room. Before George began to clear the table, I took my linen napkin and rubbed it across the back of my hand, wiping away the wetness left there and wondering why I felt such an uneasy sensation deep in my stomach.


	3. Chapter 2: January 17th 1893

_Madeleine Elcott and her daughter_ , Camille, were the first of the social calls I received two days later. Mr. Elcott was on the board at Father's bank, and Mrs. Elcott had been a great friend of Mother, though I never truly understood why. Mother had been beautiful and charming, and a renowned hostess. In comparison, Mrs. Elcott had seemed waspish, gossipy, and miserly. When she and Mother sat together at dinner parties, I used to think Mrs. Elcott looked like a clucking chicken next to a dove, but she had the ability to make Mother laugh, and Mother's laughter had been so magical, it had made the reason for it unimportant. I'd once overheard Father telling Mother that she would simply have to do more entertaining because dinner parties at the Elcott mansion were short on spirits and courses, and long on talk. Had anyone ever asked for my opinion, which of course they did not, I would have agreed wholeheartedly with Father. The Elcott mansion was less than a mile from our home, and looked stately and proper from the outside, but the inside was Spartan and, actually, rather gloomy. Little wonder Camille so loved visiting me!

Camille was my best friend. She and I are close in age being only six months younger. Camille talked a lot, but not in the cruel, gossipy way of her mother. Because of the closeness of our parents, Camille and I had grown up together, which had made us more like sisters than best friends.

"Oh, my poor, sad Emily! How thin and wan you look," Camille had said as she rushed into Mother's parlor and embraced me.

"Well, of course she looks thin and wan!" Mrs. Elcott had moved her daughter aside and stiffly taken my hands in hers before she'd even taken off her white leather gloves. Remembering her touch, I realize now that she'd felt cold and quite reptilian. "Emily has lost her mother, Camille. Think of how wretched your life would be if lost me. I would expect you to look just as terrible as poor Emily. I'm sure dear Alice is looking down on her daughter in understanding and appreciation."

Not expecting her to speak so freely of Mother's death, I felt a little shock at Mrs. Elcott's words. I tried to catch Camille's gaze as we moved apart, setting ourselves on the divan and matching chairs. I'd wanted to share with her our old look, one that said we agreed how sometimes our mothers could say terribly embarrassing things, but Camille seemed to be looking everywhere but at me.

"Yes, Mother, of course. I apologize," was all she muttered contritely.

Trying to feel my way through this new social world that suddenly was very foreign, I breathed a long breath of relief when the housemaid busted in with tea and cakes. I poured. Mrs. Elcott and Camille studied me.

"You really are quite thin," Camille said finally.

"I will be better soon," I'd said, sending her a reassuring smile. "At first I found it difficult to do nothing except sleep, but Father has insisted that I get well. He reminded me that I am now the Lady of Wheiler House."

Camille's gaze had flicked quickly to her mother's. I could not read the hard look in Mrs. Elcott's eyes, but it was enough to silence her daughter.

"That is quite brave of you, Emily," Mrs. Elcott spoke into the silence. "I am sure you are a great comfort to your father."

"We tried to see you for two whole months, but you wouldn't receive us, not even during the holidays. It was like you had disappeared!" Camille blurted as I poured her tea. "I thought you died, too."

"I'm sorry." At first, her words had made me contrite. "I didn't mean to upset you."

"Of course you didn't," Mrs. Elcott had said frowning at her daughter. "Camille, Emily wasn't disappearing-she was mourning."

"I still am," I'd said softly. Camille heard me and nodded, wiping her eyes, but her mother had been too busy helping herself to the iced cakes to pay either of as any attention.

There was a silence that seemed to last a long while we sipped our tea and I pushed the small, white cake around my plate, and then, in a high, excited voice, Mrs. Elcott asked, "Emily, is it true were you really there? In the room when Alice died?"

I'd looked to Camille, wishing for an instant that she could silence her mother, but of course that had been a very foolish, futile wish. My friend's face had mirrored my own discomfort, though she did not appear shocked at her mother's disregard for propriety and privacy. I realized that Camille had known her mother was going to ask this. I drew a deep, fortifying breath and answered truthfully, though hesitantly, "Yes, I was there."

"It must have been quite ghastly," Camille said quickly.

"Yes," I said. I had placed my teacup carefully into its saucer before either of them could see that my hand had started to tremble.

"I expect there had been a lot of blood," Mrs. Elcott said, nodding slowly as if in pre-agreement with my response.

"There was." I'd clasped my hands together tightly in my lap.

"When we heard you were in the room when she died, we were all so very sorry for you,' Camille had said softly, but hesitantly.

Shocked silent, I could almost hear Mother's voice saying sharply, _Servants and their gossip!_ I was mortified that Mother's death had been the topic of gossip, but I'd also longed to talk to Camille, to tell her how frightened I'd been. But before I could collect myself enough to speak, her mother's sharp voice had intruded.

"Indeed, it was all anyone could talk about for weeks and weeks. Your poor mother would have been appalled. Bad enough that you missed the Christmas Ball, but for the topic of conversation during that evening was your witnessing her gruesome death . . ." Mrs. Elcott shuddered. "Alice would have thought it as dreadful as it was."

My cheeks had grown hot. I had utterly forgotten about the Christmas Ball, and my sixteenth birthday. Both of which had taken place in December, when sleep had consumed me.

"Everyone was talking about me at the ball?" At that point I had wanted to run back to my room, and never emerge.

Camille's words came fast, and she had made a vague movement, as if she understood how difficult the conversation had become for me and was trying to brush the subject away. "Nancy, Evelyn and Elizabeth were worried about you. We were _all_ worried about you-we still are."

"You left out one person who seemed especially concerned: Arthur Simpton. Remember how you said he could talk of nothing except how horrible it all must have been for Emily, even while he was waltzing with you." Mrs. Elcott hadn't sounded worried at all. She'd sounded angry.

I'd blinked and felt as if I was swimming up through murky waters. "Arthur Simpton? He was talking about me?"

"Yes, while he danced with _Camille."_ Mrs. Ecott's tone had been hard with annoyance, and I suddenly understood why-Arthur Simpton is the eldest son of a wealthy railroad family that had recently relocated from New York City to Chicago, because of close business ties with Mr. Pullman. Besides being rich, suitably bred, and eligible, he was also extremely handsome. Camille and I had whispered about him as his family moved into their South Prairie Avenue mansion and we'd watched him riding his bicycle up and down the street. Arthur had been the single driving force behind our desire to obtain our own bicycles and to join the Hermes Bicycle Club. He had also been one of the key reasons both of our mothers had agreed to pressure our fathers into allowing us to do so, even though Camille had told me she'd heard her father informing her mother that bicycle bloomers could lead a young woman into "a life of pernicious lasciviousness." I remembered it clearly because Camille had made me giggle as she had done an excellent impression of her father. As I'd laughed she'd also said she'd be willing to enter a life of pernicious lasciviousness if it meant entering it with Arthur Simpton.

I hadn't said anything then. It hadn't seemed necessary. Arthur had, quite often, looked our way, but the both of us knew it was my eyes he met when he tipped his hat, and my name he called a "Bright, good morning, Miss Emily" to.

I shook my head, feeling woozy and slow. I turned to Camille. "Arthur Simpton? He danced with you?

"Most of the evening," Mrs. Elcott had spoken for her daughter nodding her head so quickly the feathers on her hat fluttered with disturbing violence, making her look even more hen like. "In truth Camille and I believe Arthur Simpton will approach Mr. Elcott soon and ask permission to formally court her."

My stomach had felt terrible and hollow. How could he court Camille? Little over two months ago he hadn't so much as spoken her name to wish her a good morning. Could, in such a short amount of time, could he change so drastically?

Yes, I'd decided silently and quickly. Yes, a short amount of time could change anyone drastically. It had certainly changed me.

I'd opened my mouth to speak, though I was still not sure what it was I was going to say, than Father had burst into the room, looking frazzled and wearing no jacket.

"Ah, Emily, here you are." He'd nodded absently to Mrs. Elcott and Camille, saying, "Good afternoon, ladies." Then he'd turned his full attention to me. "Emily, which waistcoat should I wear this evening? The black or the burgundy? The board is meeting again with those infernal architects, and I need to use a firm hand. The right tone must be set. Their budget is out of control and time is short. The fair must open the first of May. They are simply not prepared. They climb too steep-too steep!"

I blinked, trying to focus on the bizarre scene. Arthur Simption's name linked with Camille's had still been almost tangible in the air around us while Father stood there, his dress shirt untucked and partially buttoned, a waistcoat in each hand, waving them about as if they were flags. Mrs. Elcott and Camille were staring at him as if he had gone mad.

I was suddenly very angry, and I'd automatically come to Father's defence.

"Mother always said the black is more formal, but the burgundy is richer. Wear the burgundy, Father. The architects should see you as rich enough to control the money and therefore, their futures. "I'd tried my best to pitch my voice softly to mimic my mother's soothing tone.

Father had nodded. "Yes, yes, is should be as your mother said. The richer is better. Yes, well done." He'd bowed briskly to the other two women, wishing them a good day and then he hurried out. Before the door closed, I could just see his valet, Carson, joining him in the hallway and taking the discarded black waistcoat that was tossed his way.

When I turned back to the Elcott women, I lifted my chin. "As you can see, Father, has been depending upon me."

Mrs. Elcott had lifted a brow and sniffed. "I do see, your father is a fortunate man, and the man to whom he eventually marries you to will also be, fortunate, as well to have such a well-trained wife." Her gaze went to her daughter and then she smiled silkily as she'd continued. "Though I imagine your father won't want to part with you for several years, so marriage is out of the question for some time in your future."

"Marriage?" A jolt had gone through me at the very word. Camille and I had talked about it, of course, but we had mostly whispered about the courting, the betrothal, the sumptuous wedding . . . and not the actual marriage itself. Mother's voice had suddenly echoed from my memory: _Emily, you will not leave me . . . you should know what it is to be a wife and mother. You should not go blindly into it as I did._ I'd felt a shudder of panic and quickly added, "Oh, I couldn't possibly think about marriage now!"

"Of course you can't think about marriage right now! Neither of us should-not really. We're sixteen. That's entirely too young. Isn't that what you've always said, Mother?" Camille had sounded strained, almost frightened.

"Thinking about a thing and preparing for a thing are not the same, Camille. Opportunity should not be overlooked, and _that_ is what I have always said." Mrs. Elcott had peered down her long nose at me while she spoke with disdain.

"Well, I think it is a good thing that I am devoted to my father," I'd responded, feeling horribly uncomfortable and unsure of what else to say.

"Oh, we all agree with that!" Mrs Elcott had said.

They hadn't stayed long after Father's appearance. Mrs. Elcott had rushed Camille off, not giving us even one small chance to speak to each other, alone. It was as if she'd gotten what she'd come for and left satisfied.

Oh, and me? What had I gotten?

I'd hoped for validation, even though the affection of the handsome young Arthur Simpton had turned from me to my friend. I'd believed it was duty as a daughter to care for my father. I'd felt that Camille and her mother would see that I was doing my best to carry on after Mother-that in a little over two months I'd grown from a girl to a woman. I'd thought that somehow I could make the loss of Mother bearable.

In the long, silent hours after their visit, my mind had begun to replay the events and to view their facets differently, and on retrospection I feel my second view to be more, valid than my first. Mrs. Elcott had wanted substantiation of the gossip; she'd gotten her wish. She had also wanted to make it very clear that Arthur Simpton would not be a part of my future and that no man-other than Father-would be a part of my future. She had accomplished both tasks.

I'd sat up that night and waited for Father's return. Even now, as I record what happened next, I cannot fault myself for my actions. As the Lady of Wheiler Mansion, it was my duty to see Father cared for-to be there with tea or possibly a brandy for him-as I'd imagined Mother had often done upon his late return from work dinners. I had expected Father to be tired. I had expected him to be himself: aloof, gruff, and overbearing, but polite and appreciative of my fidelity.

I had not expected him to be drunk!

I'd seen Father filled with wine, I had seen him red nosed and effusive in his praise of Mother's beauty as they went out in the evenings, dressed formally and trailing the scent of lavender, lemon and cabernet. I cannot remember ever seeing then upon their return. Had I not been asleep in my bed, I would have been brushing my hair or embroidering the fine details of violets at the bodice of my newest day dress.

I realize now that Father and Mother had been to me like distant moons circling the self-absorption of my youth.

That night Father evolved from moon to burning sun.

He'd lurched inside the foyer, calling loudly for his valet, Carson. I'd been in Mother's parlor, trying to keep my heavy eyes open by rereading Emily Bronte gothic novel, _Wuthering Heights._ At the sound of his voice, I'd put the book aside and hurried to him. His scent came to me before I saw him. I remember that I pressed a hand against my nose, flustered at the rankness of brandy, sweat and cigars. As I write this I am afraid that those three odour's will for me, forever be the scent of man, and the scent of nightmares.

I'd rushed to his side pursing my lips at the thick reek of his breath thinking that he must not be well.

"Father, are you ill?" Should I call the physician?"

"Physician? No, no, no! Right as rain. I'm right as rain. Just need some help getting to Alice's room. Not as young as I used to be-not at all. I still can do my duty. I'll get her with a son yet!" Father swayed as he talked and he'd put a heavy hand on my shoulder to steady himself.

I staggered under his weight, guiding him to the wide staircase, so worried that he was ill that I hardly comprehended what he was saying. "I'm here. I'll help you," was what I whispered over and over to him. He'd leaned even more heavily on me as we climbed clumsily up to the second floor and finally stopped outside his bedchamber. He'd shaken his head back and forth, mumbling, "This isn't her room."

"It's your bedroom," I'd said, wishing his valet or _anyone_ would appear.

He'd squinted at me, as if he were having trouble focusing. Then his slack, drunken expression changed. "Alice? So, you _are_ willing to break your frigid rules and join my bed tonight."

His hand had been not and damp on the shoulder of my fine linen nightgown.

"Father, it's me, Emily."

"Father?" He'd blinked and brought his face down closer to mine. His breath had almost made me retch. "Emily. Indeed, it is you. Yes, you, I know you now. You cannot be Alice, she is dead." His face still very close to mine, he added, "You are so thin, but you have her eyes." He'd reached out and then lifted a strand of the thick auburn hair that had escaped my nightcap. "You have her hair, also. You have her hair." He'd rubbed my hair between his fingers and slurred, "You should eat more-shouldn't be so thin." Then he bellowed for Carson to attend him, Father let go of my hair, shoved me aside and staggered into his room.

I should have retreated to my own bed, but a terrible unease had come over me and I ran, allowing my feet to carry me where they willed. When I finally halted, gasping to catch my breath, I found my blind flight had taken me into the gardens. Which stretched for more than five acres in the rear of our house, there I collapsed on a stone bench that sat concealed under the curtain of a massive willow tree and I put my face in my hands and wept.

Then something magical happened. The warm night breeze lifted the willow branches and the clouds blew away, exposing the moon. Though only a slim crescent it was almost silver, in its brilliance and it seemed to beam metallic light into the garden, setting aglow the huge white marble fountain that was its central feature. Within the fountain, spewing water from his open mouth was the Greek god Zeus, in the form of the bull that had tricked and then abducted the maiden, Europa. The fountain had been a wedding gift from Father to, Mother, and had been at the heart of Mother's extensive garden since my earliest memories.

Perhaps it was because the fountain was Mother's, or perhaps, it was from envy for the musicality of the bubbling water, but my tears stopped as I studied it. Eventually my heartbeat slowed and my breathing became normal. Even when the moon became cloaked by clouds, again, I remained beneath the tree listening to the water and allowing it, as well as the concealing willow shadows, to soothe me until I knew I could sleep. Then I slowly mad my way up to my third-floor bedroom. That night I dreamed I was Europa and the white bull was carrying me away to a beautiful meadow where on one ever died and where I was eternally young and carefree.


	4. Chapter 3: March 15th 1893

_I should have written_ in my journal before now, but these last months since my last entry have been so confusing-so difficult-that I have not been myself. Childish, I thought that by not writing, not recording the events that have unfolded, I could make it seem as if they had not happened-would not continue to happen.

I was so very wrong.

Everything changed, and I must use this journal as evidence. Even if I am losing my mind, it will show an unravelling of madness and as I originally hopped, provide a path for my treatment. If, as I am coming to suspect, I am not mad, a record of these events should be made and, might somehow, aid me if I must choose a new future.

Let me begin.

After that cold night in January when Father returned home, drunk, I have never waited up for him again and never will again. I tried not to think much on it-tried not to remember his breath, the hot and heavy feel of his hand and the things he'd said.

Instead when he departed for late dinner meetings, I wished him a good evening and said I would be sure Carson attended to him when he returned.

At first that stopped his burning looks. I was so busy with the running of Wheiler House that except for our dinners together I saw Father so very little.

Over the past months the dinners had changed. Well, rather the dinners hadn't changed-but the amount of wine Father consumed is what had changed. The more Father drank the more often his eyes burned into me as he bid me good night.

I began to carefully water his wine. He has yet to notice.

Then I threw all my attention into taking complete responsibility for running Wheiler House. Yes, Mary and Carson helped me . . . advised me. The cook made grocer lists, but I approved the menus. As Mary had once commented, it was as if my mother's spirit had taken over me and I was a girl no more.

I tried to tell myself that was a good thing-a lovely compliment. The truth was then as it is also is today-I think I did my duty and continued to do my duty-but I am not sure that is a good thing at all.

It is not simply the work of being Lady of Wheiler House that has changed me. It is how people began to change in their treatment towards me. Yes, at first I had been overwhelmed by the extent of Mother's duties. I'd had no idea that she not only ran the house, but she also, instructed the servants, saw to every detail of Father's routine, supervised me _and_ volunteered twice a week at the General Federation of Women's Club. Helping to feed and care for the homeless women and children of Chicago. Mother had been dead for five months, and during that time I had completely dedicated myself to being Lady of Wheiler House. When Evelyn Field and Camille called me one mid-morning early last month, asking if I would like to join them in riding our bicycles to the shore and picnicking. I'd been overwhelmed with joy the freedom of the moment provided, especially as I had thought that Father had already left for the bank.

"Oh, yes!" I'd said happily, putting down my fountain pen and pushing aside the grocer list I'd been going over. I remember how happy Evelyn and Camille had been when I'd said yes. The three of us had laughed, very hard.

"Emily, I am so glad you will come with us." Camille had hugged me, "and you are looking well-not pale and thin at all."

"No, not pale and thin at all!" Evelyn agreed. "You're more beautiful than ever."

"Thank you, Evelyn; I have missed everyone so very much." I'd hesitated, feeling the need to share a confidence with someone who wasn't a servant-or my father for that matter. "It has been difficult since Mother died, really difficult." Camille had chewed her lip. Evelyn had looked as if she was on the verge of tears. I quickly wiped my cheeks with the back of my hand and found my smile again. "Now that the both of you are here I'm feeling much lighter than I have for weeks and weeks."

"That's what we intended, Mother tried to tell me you were too busy to be bothered with bicycle riding, but I did not listen to her and called you anyway," Camille had said.

"Your mother is always too serious," Evelyn said rolling her eyes skyward. "We all know that."

"I don't believe she was _ever_ young," Camille had said making us giggle.

I was still giggling as I hurried from the parlor determined to rush up the stairs and change as quickly as probable into my riding bloomers, when I'd run straight into Father.

The breath had been knocked out of me with an _oof,_ and my eyes had teared.

"Emily, why would you be running from the parlor in such an uncivilized manner?" Father had seemed to be a storm cloud in the making.

"E-excuse me, Father," I'd stuttered. "Camille Elcott and Evelyn Field have called me and asked that I bike to the lake with them for lunch. I was hurrying to change my clothes."

"Bicycling is excellent for the heart. It creates a strong constitution, though I do not approve of young people biking together with no adult supervision."

I hadn't noticed the tall woman standing across the foyer from Father until she'd spoken. She'd taken me by surprise, and I'd stood their speechless, staring at her. In her deep blue dress and her peacock-plumed hat, she'd made quite an imposing figure, though one I had not recognized, and I'd wanted to say that I did not approve of old woman wearing wildly plumed hats, but of course I'd held my tongue.

"Emily do you not remember Mrs. Armour? She is chairwoman of the General Federation of Women's Club," Father had prompted me.

"Oh yes, Mrs. Armour. I apologize for not recognizing you." I had recognized her name now that Father had spoken it, but I could not remember the woman herself, "And-and I also apologize for rushing out," I continued hastily. "I do not mean to be impolite"-I'd turned and made a gesture that took in Evelyn and Camille where they were sitting in the parlor, watching with obvious curiosity-"As you can see, my friends are waiting for me. Father, I will ring for Mary to bring tea if you are entertaining Mrs. Armour in your study."

"You mistake me Miss Wheiler. It is you, and not you're Father with who I wish to visit."

I'd been confused and I believe I gasped rather stupidly at the old woman.

Father had not been confused. Emily, Mrs. Armour has called on you to speak about your inherited place at the GFWC. It was a passion of your mother's. I expect it to be a passion of yours as well."

My confusion cleared as I realized why the name Armour had been familiar. Philip Armour was one of the wealthiest men in Chicago and had kept much of his money in Father's bank. I'd turned to Mrs. Armour and made myself smile. Pitching my voice soft and soothing, just as Mother used to sound. "I would be honoured to inherit Mother's place at the GFWC. Perhaps we can set a date for me to come to Market Hall and meet with you about-"

Suddenly Father's big hand engulfed my elbow, squeezing while he comparison, "You will meet with Mrs. Armour, now Emily." In comparison to my gentleness, Father was like a battlefield. I heard Evelyn and Camille both gasp at his forcefulness.

Then Camille was there at my side saying, "We can easily call again Emily. Please, your mother's work is so very much more important than our silly bicycle outing."

"Yes," Evelyn had added as my friends moved hastily to the door. "We'll call again.

The sound of the door closing behind them had seemed to me like the sealing of a tomb.

"Ah, well that's better. Enough foolishness," Father said as he loosed my elbow.

"Mrs. Armour, please join me in the parlor and I will ring Mary for tea," I'd said.

"Good, go on about your business, Emily. I will see you at dinner. Good girl-very good girl," Father had said gruffly. He bowed to Mrs. Armour and then left us alone together in the foyer.

"I can tell you are young women of great character," Mrs. Armour said as I woodenly led her into Mother's parlor. "I am sure we will get on well together, just as your mother and I did."

I nodded and agreed and let the old women talk on and on about the importance of women of means being united in their dedication to improving the community through volunteer service.

In the weeks that have followed, I have come to realize how ironic it was that Mrs. Armour, who lectured unendingly about the importance of the unity of women, has become one of the main instruments in isolating me from other women my age. You see, Evelyn and Camille have not called again to ask that I bike with them. Evelyn has not called me at all since that morning. Camille, well Camille was different. It would take more to lose her as a friend, much, much more.


	5. Chapter 4: April 15th 1893

_March passed into April_ -the winter chill turn tempered by spring that came with light and reviving showers. My life has aligned itself into a numbing rhythm. I run the household, I volunteered at the wretched Market Hall, feeding the poor while I nod and agree with the old women who surround me when they drone on and on about how, because the spotlight of the world would shortly be on us and the World's Fair, we must use our every resource to change and shape Chicago from a barbaric gathering into a modern city. I have dinner with Father. I watch and I have learned.

I learned not to interrupt Father. He liked to speak while we ate dinner. Speak, not _talk._ Father and I did not talk. He spoke and I listened. I wanted to believe that taking Mother's place in the household and at dinner was honouring her memory and at first I did believe it. Soon I began to see that I was not doing anything at all except providing the vessel into which Father poured his vitriolic opinion of the world. Our nightly dinners were a stage for his soliloquy anger and disdain.

I continued to secretly water Father's wine. Sober, he was abrupt, overbearing and boorish. Drunk, he was terrifying. He did not beat me-he has never, ever beaten me-though I almost wish he would. At the very least that would be a sure and outward sign of his abuse. What Father does instead is, burn me with his eyes. I have come to loathe his hot and penetrating gaze.

Though how can that be? Better asked why? Why did I come to loathe a simple look? The answer, I hope-I pray, will unravel here, in these pages of my journal.


	6. Chapter 5: April 17th 1893

_Camille visited_ , less and less often through. The problem wasn't that our friendship had ended, not at all! She and I were still close as sisters when we were together. The problem was that we were less and less able to see each other. Mrs. Armour and Father decided that I must continue Mother's work. So I ladled soup to the miserably starving and handed out clothing to the stinking homeless three days per week, That left a mere two day out of the five, when Father worked, for Camille and I to visit each other, and for me to escape. It has become more and clearer to me now that escape is not possible.

I tried to get away from Wheiler House and to call Camille as I had before Mother's death. I attempted this four times. Father thwarted me each time. The first time, leaving late for his banking duties, Father spied me as I was hurrying away on my neglected bicycle. He didn't come into the street to call me back. No, he sent Carson after me. The poor aged valet had turned red as a ripe tomato, as he'd jogged along South Prairie Avenue to catch up with me.

"A bicycle is not ladylike!" Father had blustered when I'd reluctantly followed Carson home.

"Mother never minded that I rode my bicycle. She even allowed me to join the Hermes Bicycle Club with Camille and the rest of the girls!" I'd protested.

"Your mother is dead and you are no longer one of the _rest of the girls."_ Father's eyes had travelled from my gaze down my body, taking in my modest bicycle bloomers and my serviceable, unadorned flat leather shoes. "What you are wearing is lewd."

"Father, bicycle bloomers are what all the girls wear."

His eyes continued to stare at me, burning me from my waist down. I had to fist my hands at my sides to keep from covering myself.

"I can see the shape of your body, your legs." His voice sounded odd, breathless even.

My stomach heaved. "I-I will not wear them again," I heard myself saying.

"Be sure you do not. It isn't proper-not proper at all." His hot gaze left me and he pushed his hat firmly on his head and bowed to me. "I shall see you at dinner, where you will behave and dress in the fashion of a civilized lady worthy of her position as mistress of my house. Do you understand me?"

"Yes Father, I understand."

"Carson!"

"Yes sir!" His valet, who had been hovering nervously in the corner of the foyer, had jumped at Father's violent tone and skittered to him, reminding me of a large old beetle.

"See that Miss Wheiler remains at home today, where she belongs and get rid of that infernal bicycle!"

"Very well sir, I will do as you say . . ." The old wretch had simpered and bowed as Father had stalked from the house.

Alone with him, Caron's eyes flicked from mine, to the tapestry on the wall behind us, then to the chandelier, then to the floor, he looked everywhere except truly meeting my gaze. "Please, Miss, you know I can't let you leave.

"Yes, I know." I chewed my lip and added, hesitantly though, "Carson could you perhaps, move my bicycle from the outbuilding to the gardening shed at the rear of the grounds instead of actually getting rid of it? Father never goes there-he will never know. I'm sure he'll be more reasonable soon and allow me to return to my club."

"I would like to, Miss I would, but I cannot disobey Mr. Wheiler.

I'd turned on my heels and slammed the door to the parlor that had become mine. I hadn't really been angry with Carson, nor did I blame him. I did understand all too well what it was to be Father's puppet.

That night I dressed carefully for dinner in my most modest gown. Father hardly glanced at me when he talked endlessly about the bank, the precarious state of finances in the city and the impending World Fair. I rarely spoke. I nodded demurely and made agreeable noised when he paused. He drank goblet after goblet of secretly watered wine and ate an entire rack of rare lamb.

It wasn't until he stood and bade me a good night that his gaze lingered to mine. I could see that despite the weakened wine, he'd had enough of it to flush his cheeks.

"Good night Father," I said quickly

His gaze scalded from my eyes to my lips, I flattened them together wishing they were less full-less pink.

The gaze then went from my lips to the high bodice of my dress. Then quite abruptly, he met my eyes again.

"Tell the Cook to serve the lamb more often and have her be sure it is as rare next time as it was tonight. I find I have a taste for it," he said.

"Yes Father," I kept my voice soft. "Good night," I repeated.

"You know you have your mother's eyes.

My stomach heaved. "Yes, I know, good night Father," I said for the third time.

Finally without another word, he'd left the room.

I went to my bedchamber and sat in my window seat, with my neatly folded bicycling bloomers in my lap. I watched the moon rise and begin to climb its way up the sky and when night was at its darkest, I made my way carefully and quietly down the stairs and out the rear door that led to the path, which emptied into our elaborate gardens. As I'd walked past the great bull fountain, I pretended that I was just another of the shadows surrounding it-not at all a living thing . . . not a girl who could be discovered.

I'd found my way to the utility shed and found a shovel. Behind the shed at the edge of our property, I went to the pile of rotting compost the labourers used as fertilizer. Not heeding the smell, I dug deeply until I'd been certain they would be safely hidden and I'd buried my bloomers.

Afterward I returned the shovel and washed my hands in the rainwater barrel. Then I went to my stone bench beneath the willow tree. I sat within its dark, comforting curtain until my stomach stopped heaving and I was quite sure I would not be sick. Then I sat some more, allowing the shadows and the darkness of the night to soothe me.


	7. Chapter 6: April 18th 1893

_Though not on bicycle—_ never again on bicycle—I made my way to Camille's home three more times, walking the short distance down South Prairie Avenue to the Elcott mansion. Two of the three times she and I had managed to stroll toward the lake, wanting to catch a glimpse of the magical world that was being created from marsh, sand and had the whole city abuzz.

Mrs. Elcott's maid had intercepted us both times with the urgent message that I was needed at home. When I returned home there was always something to be tended to, but that something was never urgent. Plus each evening Father drank heavily, his hot gaze focusing on me more and more frequently.

So, you see, it was madness for me to go to Camille a third time. Isn't is madness to do a thing again and again, expecting a different outcome? Does that not make me mad?

I do not feel mad. I feel very much myself. My mind is clear. My thoughts are my own. I mis Mother, but the numbness of mourning has left me. What has replaced it is a waiting and wondering sense of dread. To combat the dread I have come to crave the normalcy of my old life so desperately that it is beyond my ability to translate it into words.

Perhaps I am having a bout of hysterics.

I don't lose my breath, faint or burst into flamboyant tears. So, is the coolness of my temperament more proof that I am mad? Or could how I feel be much like how any girl would feel whose mother's death had so untimely come? Is Father's hot gazing only a symptom of his widower's grief? I do, indeed, have my mother's eyes.

Whatever is true, I could not stay away from Camille and the life I missed so very much. This very afternoon I visited Camille again. We did not attempt to leave the Elcott home this time. It was an unspoken agreement between us that we know if we left it would end abruptly with Carson coming to escort me home. Camille embraced me and then called for tea in the old nursery that had been made over into a rose wallpapered parlour for the Elcott daughters. While we were alone Camille had grasped my hand.

"Emily, I am so very glad to see you! I've been worried! When I called on you last Wednesday, your father's valet told me you were unavailable. That is exactly what he said the Friday before as well."

"I was _unavailable,"_ I curled my lip and empathized the word. "Both days I was at dreary Market Hall, being a servant to the homeless people of Chicago."

Camille's smooth brow furrowed. "Then you haven't been ill?"

I snorted. "Not ill of body, but ill of mind and heart. It is as if Father expects me to take Mother's place in all things."

Camille fanned herself with her delicate fingers. "I'm so relieved! I thought you might have been struck by pneumonia. You know Evelyn died of it last week."

I felt a shudder of shock roll down my spine. "I didn't know. No one told me. How terrible . . . how very terrible."

"Don't be frightened. You look strong and as beautiful as ever."

I shook my head. "Beautiful and strong, I feel as if I am one hundred years old and that the whole world has passed me by. I miss you and I miss my old life so very much!"

"Mother says what you're doing is more important than the girls' games we used to play and I know she must be right – being Lady of a great house is very important."

"I'm _not_ the Lady of a great house! I am more servant than anything else." I felt as if I wanted to explode. "I'm not allowed to breathe on bit of freedom."

Camille tried to put a cherry face on my changes. "It is the middle of April. In two weeks it will be six months since your mother's death. Then you will be free of mourning and be able to re-join society."

"I don't know if I can even bear two more weeks of everything being so very dreary and so very _boring_ until then." I'd chewed my lip at Camille's surprised look and hurried to explain. "Being the Lady of Wheiler House is a job – a terribly serious job. Everything must be just so – and just so means exactly how Father wants it, which is how Mather had it. I didn't understand how hard and grim it is to be a wife." I drew a deep breath and said, "She tried to tell me, that day; the day she died. That is why I was in the birthing room with her. Mother said she wanted me to know what it was to be a wife and to not go blindly into it as she had. So I watched, Camille; I watched her die in a flood of blood, with no loving husband to hold her hand and mourn at her side. That is what it is to be a wife – loneliness and death. Camille, we must never get married!"

Camille had been stirring her tea quite manically while I'd been unburdening myself of thoughts I's been longing to share with someone. She had dropped her spoon at my exclamation. I'd watched her gaze flick nervously to the closed parlour-room door and then back to me.

"Emily, I do not think it is good that you linger on thoughts of your mother's death. It cannot be healthy."

I understand now, as I record our conversation; that I had begun to say more than Camille could bear to hear and I should have ended the subject, keeping my thoughts to myself and to this, my silent, nonjudgmental journal. Then all I had wanted was someone to talk with – to share my growing fears and frustrations with, so I continued.

"My thoughts _must_ linger on her death. Mother herself wished it so. It was she who insisted I be there. She who wanted me to know the truth; I think, maybe, Mother knew her death was near and that she was trying to warn me – trying to show me that I should choose a different path than that of a wife and mother."

"A different path, whatever can you mean? Religious work?"

Camille and I had curled our noses together, our minds completely alike in this aspect.

"Hardly, you should see the spinsters from the churches who volunteer at the GFWC. They are so drawn and pathetic, like unfed sparrows pecking at the scraps of life. No, I've been thinking about lovely little shops that have opened around the Loop. If I can run Wheiler House, certainly I can run simple hat shop."

"Your Father would never allow that!"

"If I could make my own way, I would not need his permission," I'd said firmly.

"Emily," Camille had said, sounding worried and a little frightened.

"You cannot be thinking of leaving home. All sorts of terrible things happen to girls with no family and no money." She'd lowered her voice and leaned closer to me.

"You know the Vampires just moved into their palace. They bought all of Grant Park for their terrible school!"

I'd shrugged dismissively. "Yes, yes, Father's bank handled the transaction. He's talked endlessly about them and their money. They call the school a House of Night. Father says it's completely walled off from the rest of the city and guarded constantly by their own warriors."

"They drink blood! They are _vampires!"_

I'd been thoroughly irritated that the subject of the miserable state of my life had been overshadowed by one of Father's clients.

"Camille, Vampires re rich, everyone knows that. They have schools in many cities all over the world. They even helped to finance the building of the Eiffel Tower for Paris's World's Fair."

"I heard Mother say Vampire women are in charge of their society," Camille had whispered while she glanced at the parlour door again.

"If that is true I say _'good'_ for them! If I was a Vampire, I could choose not to be trapped by my Father's into pretending to be my Mother."

Camille's eyes had widened. I'd definitely found way to turn the conversation back to my troubles.

"Emily, he couldn't want you to pretend to be your Mother. That makes no sense."

"Sense or not, that is how it seems to me."

"You must look at it with different eyes, Emily. Your poor Father simply needs your help through this difficult time."

I'd felt as if the inside of me was beginning to boil and I couldn't stop my words. "I hate it, Camille. I hate trying to take Mother's place.

"Of course you would hate feeling like you must make up for your Mother's absence. I can hardly imagine all that there is for you to do," Camille had said, nodding sombrely.

"When you are the great Lady of a house, there are also jewels to buy, dresses to be commissioned and brilliant parties to host." She'd found her smile again as she'd poured tea into my cup.

"As soon as you are out of mourning, all _that_ will be your responsibility too," She'd giggled and I'd stared at her, realizing she had no understanding at all of what I was trying to tell her. When I didn't speak she went on, chattering happily, as if both of us were carefree girls.

"The Columbian Exposition opens in two week, just in time for you to be out of mourning. Think of it, your Father will probably need you to host dinner parties for all sorts of foreign dignitaries."

"Camille, Father won't allow me to bicycle. He cuts short my visits with you. I cannot imagine him allowing me to host dinner parties for foreigners," I'd tried to explain, to make her understand.

"That is what your Mother would do and as you have said, he has made it clear that you inherited her place in the household."

"He has made it clear that I am trapped to be a slave and his imaginary wife!" I'd shouted. "The only time for myself I can manage are the few minutes I steal from you and the time I spend in Mother's garden – and then only at night. During the daylight hours he has the servants spy on me and sends them after me if he's displeased by where I'm going or what I'm doing. You know that! Even here they come fetch me as if I am an escaped prisoner. Being the Lady of a great house isn't a fantasy come true – it is waking nightmare."

"Oh, Emily! I do hate seeing you so distraught. Remember what Mother said all those months ago – the care you're taking of your Father will make the man who becomes your husband very happy. I envy you, Emily."

"Don't envy me." I saw that the coldness in my voice hurt her, but I could not help myself. "I have not Mother and I'm trapped with a man whose eyes burn me!" I broke off my words and pressed the back of my hand against my mouth.

I knew the instant her expression changed from concern to shock and then to disbelief that I had made a dire mistake in speaking the truth.

"Emily, whatever do you mean by that?"

"Nothing," I'd assured her. "I'm tired, that's all. I misspoke and I shouldn't be taking up all our time together just talking about me. I want to hear about you! So, tell me, has Arthur Simpton made his courtship of you formal yet?"

As I know it would, any mention of Arthur took away all other thoughts from Camille's mind. Though he hadn't spoken to her Father yet, Camille had, several times, ridden side by side with him during the Hermes Club's mid-morning lakeshore route. He'd even chatted with her the day before about how intrigued he was bout the enormous Ferris Wheel everyone could see being built on the Midway of the exposition grounds.

I was going to tell Camille I was happy for her and that I wished her well with Arthur, but the words wouldn't form in my mouth. It wasn't that I was being selfish or envious. It was simply that I could not stop thinking of the unalterable fact that should Arthur court Camille it would come to be one day, in the not too distance future, that my friend would find herself in servitude to him, waiting to die alone in a flood of blood . . .

"Excuse me, Miss Elcott. Mr. Wheiler's valet is here to collect Miss Wheiler." When Camille's maid had interrupted I realized I hadn't been listening to what Camille had been saying for several minutes.

"Thank you," I said, getting up quickly. "I really must get back."

"Miss Wheiler, the valet asked that I give this note to you and that you deliver it to Miss Elcott."

"A note? For me? How exciting!" Camille had said. With a stomach filled with dread, I passed it to her eager fingers. She'd opened it quickly, read it, blinked twice and then a radiant smile transformed her face from pretty to beautiful. "Oh, Emily, it's from your Father. Instead of your having to rush here whenever you can find time, he has invited me to call on you at Wheiler House and to visit with you in the formal parlour." She'd squeezed my hands happily. "You won't have to leave the house at all. See, it is just like you're a great Lady! I'll come straightaway next week. Perhaps Elizabeth Ryerson will join me."

"That would be nice," I'd woodenly before following Carson to the black carriage that waited outside. When he closed the door behind me, I felt as if I couldn't catch my breath. The entire ride back to Wheiler House, I had spent gasping for air, as would a fish held out of the water.

As I finish this, my first journal entries in months, I remind myself that I must never forget Camille's response to my confidence. She reacted with shock, confusion and then she reverted to our girlish dreams.

If I am mad, I must keep my thoughts to myself for fear no one else _can_ understand them.

If I am not mad, but am truly as much a prisoner as I am coming to believe I am, I must keep my thoughts to myself for fear no one else _will_ understand me.

In either scenario there is one constant – it is only upon myself I can rely and upon my own wits to devise a way to save myself, providing salvation for me exists at all.

No! I will not fall into melancholia. I live in a modern world. Young women can leave home and find new lives – different futures. I must use my wits and my wiles. I will find a way to be the conductor of my own life! I will!

Once again, I find myself recording my innermost thoughts in my journal as I await the rise of the moon and it's heralding of the deepest darkness of night so I may go to my one true escape – the shadows of the garden and the concealing comfort I find there. The night has become my security, my shield and my comfort – let us hope that it doesn't also become my shroud . . . 


	8. Chapter 7: April 19th 1893

_My hands shake as I write this._

I must make them stop; I must record all that has happened with accuracy. If I leave legible record of it, I shall be able to look back upon the events of the past several days when my mind is calmer, more rational; I may then relive every bit of discovery and wonder, not because I believe I could be mad! No, not at all, I wish to record my remembrances for a much different, a much joyous reason. I have discovered the way to a new future, or rather, _he_ has discovered me! Someday I know I will wish to sift through the web of events that have caught me up, have carried me on a tide of surprise, joy and – _yes I will confess it here, perhaps even love!_ Someday, when my own children are grown – _yes, I may indeed embrace the path of a wife and mother –_ I can reread this and tell them the story of my romance with their beloved father and how he saved me from bondage and fear.

My mind and my heart are filled with Arthur Simpton! So filled that even my loathing for my odious father cannot ruin my joy, for I have found my way free of my bondage to him and to Wheiler house!

I begin too quickly! I must go back and show how the puzzle pieces fit together to create the beautiful scene that culminated this night, oh so, happy night!


	9. Chapter 8: April 20th 1893

The afternoon I returned from Camille's home Father waited me in Mother's parlor.

"Emily, I would have a word with you!" he'd bellowed as I'd tried to hurry up the stair to retreat to my third-floor bedroom.

My hands trembled and I felt as if I might be sick, but I did not balk when he called me to him. I went to the parlor and stood, ramrod straight, hands fisted at my sides, my expression calm and unflinching. I know one thing beyond all others – Father must not sense the depth of my fear and my loathing for him. He wanted a complacent daughter; I'd been newly determined to allow him to believe he possessed what he wanted. I had meant my first step to freedom to begin at that moment; Father did not want me to socialize with my old friends. So I would capitulate, wait and as he became more and more certain of my submissive compliance to all his demands, his focus would turn away from me. _Then_ I would plan and execute my eventual escape.

"Father, I will not see Camille again, not if it displeases you." I'd said, mimicking Mother's sweet, soft tone.

He'd brushed away my words with an abruptly dismissive gesture.

"That girl is not of our concern. If you insist, you may see her here, as your mother took social calls here. We have issues of much greater importance to discuss." He'd pointed at the divan and ordered, "Sit!" The he'd bellowed for tea and brandy.

"Brandy at this hour?" I regretted it the moment after I'd spoken, I'd been so foolish! I must learn to always control my words, my expression and my very bearing.

"Do you dare question me?" He'd spoken only after the mid had left the room. He had not raised his voice, but the danger in his quiet anger shivered across my skin.

"No, I only question the hour. It is but three o'clock am I wrong, Father? I believe brandy is an evening drink."

His shoulders had relaxed and he'd chuckled as he sipped from the wide-mouthed crystal glass.

"Ah, I forget you are so young and that you have so much to learn. Emily, brandy is a man's drink, one that true men when they so will. You should begin to understand that women must behave a certain way, a way in which society dictates. That is because you are the weaker gender; you must be protected by tradition, by those who are wiser and worldlier. As for myself, I am a man who will never be a slave to social convention." He'd taken another long drink from the glass and refilled it as he continued. "That brings me to my point. Social convention dictates we spend at least six months in mourning for you mother and we have practically fulfilled that time. Should anyone question us, well, I say in the face of the World's Columbian Exposition that social convention be damned!"

I'd stared at him, uncomprehending.

Father had laughed aloud.

"You look exactly as your mother did after the first time I kissed her. That was the first night we'd met, I'd gone against social convention then, too!"

"I'm sorry Father, I do not understand."

"As of today, I am lifting our mourning period." When I gasped silently he waved his hand, as if wiping soot from a window.

"Oh, some will be shocked, but most will understand that the opening of the World's Columbian Exposition constitutes a dire emergency. The president of the bank that rules the exposition committee's funds must renter society. Continuing as we have been – segregated from our community and the world that is joining us – is simply not adhering to modern thinking. Chicago will become a modern city! Do you understand now?" He'd said and pounded his fist on the table.

"I'm sorry Father, I don't. You will have to teach me," I'd said truthfully.

He'd seemed pleased by my admission.

"Of course you couldn't understand, there is so much that needs to be explained to you." He'd leaned forward then and awkwardly patted my hands, which were clenched together in my lap. For far too long his hot, heavy hand rested on mine as his gaze burned into mine. "Thankfully, I am willing to guide you. Not all fathers would be, you know."

"Yes, Father," I'd repeated my rote answer and tried to still my heart from its frantic beating. "May I pour you more brandy?"

He'd let lose my hands then and nodded.

"Yes, indeed. There, you see – you can be guided to learn!"

I'd focused on not spilling the brandy as I poured, but my hands were trembling and the crystal decanter had clanged against his goblet, causing the amber-coloured liquor to almost spill. I'd put the bottle down quickly.

"I am sorry, Father, that was awkward of me."

"No matter, you will get steadier with practice." He'd sat back on the velvet divan and sipped his drink while studying me. "I know exactly what you need, I read about it just this morning in the _Tribune._ Seems women's hysteria symptoms are on the rise and you are obviously suffering from this malady."

Before I could formulate a protest that would not incite him, he'd risen and walked, a little unsteadily, to Mother's small buffet table that sat against the wall and then poured from the decanter of red wine that I had, just that morning, watered carefully. He'd brought the crystal wineglass to me and put it roughly into my hands, saying: "Drink. The article, written by the claimed Doctor Weinstein, stated that one to two glasses per day should be taken as a remedy for women's hysteria.

I'd wanted to tell him I was _not_ hysterical – that I was lonely, confused, frightened and, yes, angry! Instead I sipped the wine, controlled my expression and nodded, serenely, parroting my 'Yes, Father,' response.

"You see, that is better. No silly shaking hands for you now!" He'd spoken as if he'd affected a miracle cure.

As I drank the watered wine and watched him chuckle in a self-satisfied manner. I imagined throwing the wine in his pinkish face and bolting from the room, the house and the life he was trying to thrust me into.

His next words stopped that waking fantasy.

"Two evenings from now, Wednesday night at exactly eight o'clock, will signal the beginning of the reopening of Wheiler House. I have already sent invitations and received assurance all will attend."

"Attend, the house reopening?" My head had felt as if it were going to explode.

"Yes, yes, do try to pay attention, Emily. It won't be a full dinner party, of course, that won't happen until Saturday. On Wednesday we will begin with an intimate group. Just a few close friends – men who also have an interest in the bank, as well as an investment in the World's Columbian Exposition: Burnham, Elcott, Olmsted, Pullman and Simpton. Five men that I have invited for a light repast, it is an excellent way to move you gently into your new role in society, and indeed, a very meagre party by your mother's standards."

"Two days from _now,_ on this Wednesday?" I'd struggled to hold tight to my composure.

"Certainly, we have wasted too much time already by being segregated from the whirlpool of happenings that surround us. The fair opens in two weeks, Wheiler House must be a hub at the centre of the wheel that is the new Chicago!"

"I have no idea how to –"

"Oh, it isn't so difficult and you are a woman, though a young one. Dining and entertaining come naturally to women and most especially to you."

"What do you mean, 'especially to me'?" My face had blazed with heat.

"Of course, you are so like your mother."

"What shall I serve or wear? How shall I –"

Consult Cook, it isn't as if it's a full dinner party. I already told you I managed to put that off until Saturday. Three courses should suffice for Wednesday, but be quite certain to have the best of the French cabernet as well as the port brought up from the cellars and send Carson for more of my cigars. Pullman has an especial fondness for my cigars; though he'd rather smoke mine then buy his own, Ha, a tight millionaire!" He'd drained the last of his brandy and slapped is thighs with his meaty palms.

"Oh, as to what you should wear, you are Lady of Wheiler House and have access to your mother's wardrobe, make good use of it." He's lifted his great bulk from the settee and was leaving the room when he'd paused and added, "Wear one of Alice's emerald velvet gowns; it will bring out your eyes."


	10. Chapter 9: April 21st 1893

I wish I could go back to that day and comfort myself by explaining that all that was happening was that the missing pieces of my life were being filled in so that the picture of my future could be complete. I needn't be so frightened and overwhelmed. All would be well – all would be most spectacularly better than well.

That night I'd had no idea that this small re-entry to society would quickly and completely alter my life – I'd only been lost in my fear and loneliness.

Two days passed in a frantic haze for me. Cook and I planned lobster creamed bisque, roasted duck breast with asparagus, which was very hard to find this early in the season and her after-dinner iced vanilla cakes, which Father loved so much.

Mary brought me Mother's collection of emerald velvet gowns. There were more than a dozen of them; she laid them out across my bed like a green waterfall of fabric. I chose the most conservative of them – an evening dress modestly fashioned and unadorned except for pearls sewn into the bodice and the sleeves. Mary clucked her disapproval, muttering that the gold-trimmed gown would make a more dramatic impression. I ignored her and lifted my choice over my head so that she had to assist me into it.

Then the alterations began. I am shorter than Mother, but only slightly and have a smaller waist. My breasts are larger, though and when Mary finally helped me lace myself into the gown and I stood before my full-length mirror, Mary immediately began to cluck and fuss and open seams, trying to contain my flesh.

"All of her dresses will have to be altered, they will," Mary had spoken through a mouthful of pins.

"I don't want to wear Mother's dresses," I'd heard myself saying, which was the truth.

"Why not? They're lovely and your looks are alike enough to hers that they will be beautiful on you as well, most of them even more than this one." She'd hesitated, thinking, then while she stared at my bosom and the material stretched tightly there, she added, "Sure and they won't all be appropriate as they are made now, but I can find lace or some silk to add here and there"

As she continued to pin and stitch, my gaze went from the mirror to my own dress that lay in a discarded heap across my bed. It was cream coloured, lacy, covered with blushing pink rosebuds and it was as different from Mother's fine velvet gowns as was Mary's brown linen uniform dress from Lady Astor's day dresses.

Yes, of course I'd known then, as now, that I should have been delighted by the vast addition to my wardrobe. Mother had been one of the finest dressed women in Chicago. When my gaze made its way back to the mirror, the girl swathed in her mother's gown that looked out at me felt like a stranger and me – Emily – had seemed to be utterly lost somewhere in her unfamiliar reflection.

When I wasn't talking with Cook, standing for alterations or trying to remember the endless details of entertaining that Mather had mastered with what had seemed like no effort at all, I wandered silently through our huge mansion, trying to avoid Father and speaking to no one. Odd how I'd not thought of our home as huge until after Mother was no longer filling it, but with her gone it had become an enormous cage, filled with all of the beautiful things one woman had collected, including her only living child.

Living child? Before that Wednesday evening, I had started to believe that I had quit living and I only existed as a shell, waiting for my body to catch me up and realize that I was already dead.

Miraculously it was then that Arthur Simpton brought me back to life!


	11. Chapter 10: April 22nd 1893

This evening, Wednesday, the twenty-second of April, Father sent a glass of wine up to my dressing room as Mary readied me for my first social event as Lady of Wheiler House. I know the wine was strong, unwatered from the special bottles Father had ordered up from the wine cellar. I'd sipped it while Mary combed and pinned my auburn hair in place.

"Tis a considerate man he is, your father," Mary had chattered.

"It warms my heart it does, how much care and attention he's been showin' ye." Mary finished.

I hadn't said anything, what could I have said? I could easily look through her eyes at me and at Father. Of course he appeared careful and considerate of me to the outside world – they had never seen his burning look or felt the unbearable heat of his hand!

When my coiffure was done Mary had stepped away. I'd stood from the chair at my vanity and walked to my full-length mirror. I'd never forget the first sight of myself as a woman fully gowned.

My cheeks had been flushed from the wine, which came easily to me as my skin is so fair – as fair as Mother's had been. The dress fit me as if it had always been mine; it was the exact colour of our eyes.

 _'_ _I am my mother,'_ I stared and thought hopelessly.

At the same instant Mary whispered and crossed herself, "You are so like her, tis like seein' a ghost."

There was a knock on my dressing room door and Carson's voice announced, "Miss Wheiler, your father sends word that the gentlemen have begun to arrive."

"Yes, all right. I'll come down in a moment." I hadn't moved, though. I don't believe I could have made my body move had Mary not squeezed my hand.

"There now, I was silly to speak so. Tis not your mother's ghost you are, not at all. Tis a lovely lass who does credit to her memory. I'll light a candle for ye tonight and pray her spirit watches over ye and gives you strength." Mary had said, then she'd opened the door for me and I'd had no choice, but to leave the room and my childhood behind.

It was a long way from my third-floor bedchamber and private parlor that had begun as a spacious nursery for children that never came, but it seemed it took only an instant for me to reach the last landing – the one that opened to the first floor foyer below. I'd paused there, the deep male voices that lifted to me sounded odd and out of place in a home that had been so silent for so many months.

"Ah, there you are, Emily." Father had closed the few steps between us, joining me on the landing. Formally, he bowed and then, as I'd seen him do for Mother countless time, held out his arm for me to take it. I automatically rested my hand on his arm and moved down the remainder of the staircase beside him. I could feel his eyes one me.

"You are a picture, my dear. A picture," I'd looked up at him, surprised to hear the familiar compliment he'd paid Mother so many times.

I hated the way he was looking at me. Even after the joy the rest of the evening brought me, that hatred is still fresh in my mind. He studied me ravenously; it was as if I were one of the rare cuts of lamb on which he habitually gorged himself on.

I still wonder if any of the waiting men that evening noticed Father's terrible gaze and my stomach roils with sickness at the thought of it.

His gaze left me and he beamed effusively at the small gathering of men below us.

"You see, Simpton. Nothing to worry about at all, Emily is right as rain – right as rain."

I'd looked down; expecting to see a greying man with rheumy eyes, a thick walrus moustache and a barrel chest, but my eyes met the blue gaze of a dashingly handsome young man who was smiling good-naturedly at me.

"Arthur!" His name had escaped before I could control my words.

His brilliant blue eyes had crinkled at the corners with his smile, but before he could respond, Father cut in gruffly.

"Emily, there will be no overfamiliarity tonight, especially when Simpton here is standing in for his father."

I felt my face flame with heat.

"Mr, Wheiler, I'm sure it was surprise that caused your daughter to speak so familiarly. I am, alas, not eh man my father is or at least not yet!" He'd said jokingly, puffing up his cheeks and swelling his chest as to mimic his father's.

A man I easily recognized as Mr. Pullman slapped Arthur on the back and laughed heartily.

"Your father does have a love of good food, can't say I'm not guilty of the same." He'd said while he patted his own impressive belly.

Carson chose then to step from an arched doorway and call, "Dinner is served, Miss Wheiler."

It had taken me several moments to realize that Carson was actually speaking to me. I swallowed past the dryness in my throat and said, "Gentlemen, if you will follow me to the dining room we would be honoured by your company for tonight's modest repast."

Father had nodded his approval to me and we'd begun walking toward the formal dining room when I couldn't stop myself from peeking back over my shoulder for another glimpse of Arthur.

Then I stumbled into Mr. Pullman's back.

"Alice, do watch where you are walking!" Father had snapped at me.

When he spoke I had been readying an apology for Mr. Pullman, so I saw the older man's face as he registered the fact that my father had just called me by my dead mother's name. His concern was palpable.

"Oh Barrett, think nothing of it! Your lovely and talented _daughter_ may stumble into me at will." The dear man put his hand on Father's shoulder, gently guiding his ahead of me, all the while engaging him in conversation and moving him forward into the dining room so that I could pause and have a moment to collect myself.

"Now, let us discuss an idea I have for adding electric lighting to Central Station. I believe that night traffic that will be generated by the Columbian Exposition justifies the expense, which we can more than make up for in the additional train tickets sold. You know I hold controlling shares in the station. I would be willing to . . ." Pullman's voice trailed away as he and Father strode into the dining room.

I'd stood there, frozen as a stone, the words _'Alice, do watch where you are walking!'_ playing round and round in my mind.

"May I escort you to dinner, Miss Wheiler?" I looked up into Arthur Simpton's kind blue eyes.

"Y-yes, please sir," I'd managed to say.

He'd offered his arm and I placed my hand on it. Unlike my father's, Arthur's forearm was trim and there was no dark mat of hair tufting out from under his cuffed dress shirt. He was so, delightfully tall!

"Don't worry, no one, except Pullman and I heard your father call you Alice." He'd whispered as we led the rest of the small group into the dining room.

It was difficult for me to speak, so I only nodded.

"Then I will attempt to distract you from your pain." He'd said in a kind voice, smiling down at me.

A wondrous thing happened – Arthur positioned himself beside me at dinner! I was, of course, sitting to Father's right, but his attention – for once – was utterly distracted form my by Mr. Pullman. When their discussion turned from the electricity at Central Station to the lighting of the Midway of the exposition and then the architect, Mr. Frederick Law Olmsted joined the conversation, adding even more passion to the argument. Arthur stayed out of much of the conversation, at first the other men joked that he was a poor stand-in for his gout-ridden father, but he laughed and agreed. Then when they returned to their battle of words, Arthur returned his attention to me.

No one seemed to notice, not even Father, at least not after I called for the fifth bottle of our good cabernet to be opened and liberally poured – though he did send me a sharp look if I laughed at one of Arthur's witticisms. I learned quickly to stifle my laughter and instead smile shyly at my plate.

I did look up, though only as often as I dared. I wanted to look into Arthur's beautiful blue eyes and see the sparkle and the kindness with which they watched me.

I did not want Father to see, nor did I want Mr. Elcott to see. Mr. Elcott's gaze did not have my father's intensity, but I did find it on me often that night. It reminded me that Mr and Mrs. Elcott, as well as Camille, expected that Arthur Simpton was close to declaring his serious affections for their daughter, though in complete honesty I will admit that I did not need a reminder.

As I write this I do feel a measure of sadness or perhaps, pity is the more sincere emotion, for poor Camille. She should not have deluded herself, the truth is the truth. That night I took nothing from her that she hadn't attempted to first take from me. I also took nothing that was not freely and joyfully given.

The dinner that I had dreaded seemed to last, but a fleeting moment. Too soon Father, his face flushed and his words slurred, pushed back from the table, stood and announced, "Let us retire to my library for brandy and cigars."  
I'd stood when Father did and the other five men got instantly to their feet.

"Let us first have a toast, to Miss Emily Wheiler for a delightful dinner. You are a credit to your mother." Mr. Pullman had said, he'd lifted his mostly empty wineglass and the rest of them had followed suit.

"To Miss Wheiler!" the men said, raising their glasses to me.

I am not ashamed to admit that I'd felt a rush of pride and of happiness.

"Thank you, gentlemen, you are all most kind." As they all bowed to me I managed to sneak a look at Arthur, who winked quickly and flashed a handsome white-toothed smile at me.

"My dear, you were a picture tonight –a picture. Have brandy and cigars sent to my library." Father slurred.

"Thank you, Father. I have already arranged for George to be waiting in your library with both brandy and cigars." I'd said softly.

He'd taken my hand in his. His large and moist, as it always was, and he lifted mine to his lips.

"You have done well tonight. I bid you a good night, my dear."

The other med had echoed his good-night wishes as I hurried from the room, wiping the back of my hand on my voluminous velvet skirts. I'd felt my father's gaze burning me the whole way and I did not dare look back, even for one last glimpse of Arthur.

I'd started toward the stairs, meaning to secret myself in my bedroom so that I would be well out of sight when Father, thoroughly drunk stumbled to his bed. I'd even told Mary, who was chattering nonstop bout what a success I'd been, to give me just a few moments to myself, but then I'd be ready for her to come to my room and help me out of the intricacies of Mother's gown so that I may change into my nightgown for bed.

As I consider back on it, tonight it seemed as if my body was completely in control of my actions and my mind could do nothing except to follow its lead.

My feet had detoured around the wide staircase and I'd slipped quietly down the servant's hall, out the rear door where my hands had lifted my skirts and I'd almost flown to the quiet bench under the willow tree that I had made my own.

Once I reached the dark security of my special place, my mind had begun to reason once again. Yes, Father should be smoking and drinking with the other men for hours, so it was logical that I could hide safely away there for most of the night. I'd understood it would be too dangerous to stay but a few moments. What if the moment I chose to slip upstairs was the same moment Father stumbled from his library to relieve himself or to bellow for the cook to bring his something to satisfy his insatiable appetite? No, No, I would not chance that and of course, there was Mary. She would look for me if she didn't find me in my bedroom and I did not want even Mary to discover my sanctuary.

Still, I'd breathed a deep, satisfied breath, taking in the cool night air and feeling the comfort lent to me by the concealing shadows. I'd wanted to steal just a few moments for myself – a few moments here in my special place and to think about Arthur Simpton.

He'd shown me such special kindness! It had been so long since I'd laughed and even though I'd had to stifle my giggles, I had still felt them! Arthur had transformed the evening I had so dreaded from a strange and frighting event to the most magical dinner I had ever experienced.

I hadn't wanted it to end and I still do not want it to end.

I remember that I could not contain myself for another moment. I stood and holding wide my arms, I twirled around in the darkness within the curtain of willow boughs and laughed joyously until, exhausted by the unaccustomed rush of laughter, I sank to the young grass, breathing hard, and brushing from my face the thick fall of hair that had escaped my chignon.

"You should never stop laughing, because when you do laugh your beauty changes from extraordinary to divine and you look like a goddess come to earth to tempt us with your untouchable loveliness."

I'd scrambled to my feet, more thrilled than shocked, as Arthur Simpton parted the willow boughs and stepped within.

"Mr. Simpton! I-I did not realize anyone else wa-"

"Mr. Simpton?" He'd cut me off with a warm, contagious smile.

"Surely even your father would agree we need not be so formal here," He'd finished.

My heart had been pounding so loudly that I believe it had drowned out the sound of my good sense that was shouting t me to hold my words, smile and return quickly inside.

Because instead of doing any of those three reasonable things, I'd blurted, "My father would not agree to us being alone in the garden together at night, no matter what I call you."

Arthur's smile had instantly dimmed. "Does your father disapprove of me?"

I shook my head.

"No, no, it is nothing like that – or at least I don't believe so. It is just that since Mother's death, Father seems to disapprove of everything."

"I am sure that is because he has so recently lost his wife."

"Remember, I have so recently lost my mother as well!" I'd had enough sense remaining to me to press my lips together in a tight line and stop my outburst.

Beginning to feel nervous and incredibly clumsy, I'd walked to the marble bench and sat, trying to tidy my escaping hair as I'd continued, "Please forgive me, Mr. Simpton, I shouldn't have spoken to you like that."

"Why ever not? Can we not be friends, Emily?" He'd followed me to the bench, but did not sit beside me.

"Yes, I would like us to be friends." I'd said softly, glad my errant hair hid my face.

"Then you must call me Arthur and fell free to speak to me as you would a friend. I will have to be certain your father finds nothing at all to disapprove of about me, I won't even mention to him that I discovered you in the garden."

My hands had instantly stilled and dropped from my hair.

"Please, Arthur. If you are my friend, promise me you will not mention that you saw me after I left the dining room."

I thought I saw what might have been surprise in his blue eyes, but it was replaced too soon by a kind, reassuring smile, for me to have been sure.

"Emily, I will say nothing of tonight to your father except to repeat what a lovely hostess his daughter was."

"Thank you, Arthur."

He did sit beside me then. Not close, but his scent come to me – cigars and something that was almost sweet.

Thinking back I realize that was foolish. How could a man smell of sweetness? I didn't know him well enough yet to understand that the absence of strong spirits and cigars on his breath seemed sweet after Father's foul odour.

"Do you come here often?" His question had seemed such an easy one to answer.

"Yes, I do."

"Your father doesn't know you do?"

I'd hesitated only a moment. His eyes were so kind – his gaze so honest – he said he'd wanted to be my friend. Surely I could confide in him, but perhaps I should do so carefully. I'd shrugged nonchalantly and found an answer that was as truthful as it was vague.

"Oh, Father is so busy with business that he rarely even notices the gardens."

"Do you like them?"

I'd nodded.

"I do, they're beautiful."

"At night? It's so dark and you are so very alone though."

"Well, as you are my friend now I feel I can tell you a secret, even though it may not be very ladylike." I'd smiled shyly up at him.

Arthur grinned mischievously, which made my heart beat faster.

"Is it your secret that isn't ladylike or the telling of it to me?"

"I am afraid perhaps, it is both." My shyness had begun to evaporate and I'd even dared to lower my lashes coquettishly.

"Now I am intrigued, as your friend I insist you tell me." He'd leaned a little toward me.

I'd met his eyes and trusted his with the truth.

"I like the darkness. It's friendly and comforting."

His smile had dimmed and I'd worried that I truly had let my words reveal too much. Though, when he spoke his voice had not lost its kindness.

"Poor, Emily, I can imagine you've needed to be comforted these past months and if this garden comforts you, day or night, then I say it is a wondrous place indeed!"

I'd felt a rush of relief and of joy at his empathy.

"Yes, you see, it is my escape and my oasis. Close your eyes and breathe deeply, you'll forget that it's night."

"Well, all right I will." He'd closed his eyes and drew a deep breath.

"What is that lovely scent? I didn't notice it until now" He'd said with a sigh.

"It's the stargazer lilies; they've just begun to bloom." I'd explained happily.

"No, keep your eyes closed. Now, listen, tell me what you hear." I'd continued.

"Your voice, which sounds to me as sweet as the lilies smell."

His compliment made my head light, but I'd scolded him with turning my tone serious.

"Not me, Arthur. Listen to the silence and tell me what you her within it."

He'd kept his eyes closed, tilting his head and said, "Water, I hear the fountain."

"Exactly! I especially like sitting here, hidden under this willow. It is as if I have found my own world where I can hear the sound of the water rushing from the fountain and imagine that I'm riding my bicycle again beside the lake with the wind in my hair and no one and nothing catching me."

Arthur opened his eyes and met my gaze.

"No one, no one at all? Not even a special friend?"

My whole body had felt flushed and I'd said, "Perhaps now I could imagine a friend joining me and I do remember how you love to bicycle."

He'd surprised me then by slapping his forehead.

"Bicycle! That reminds me of how I found you here in the garden. I excused myself early so that I might return home to speak to Father before he goes to bed. I'd bicycled here and was alone mounting my bicycle to return home when I heard laughter . . . It was the most beautiful laughter I had ever heard in my life. It seemed to be coming from the grounds behind the house; I saw the garden gate, opened it and followed the sound to you." His voice had deepened after his pause.

"Oh," I'd breathed the word on a happy sigh, my face feeling even warmer.

I'd said, "I am glad my laughter brought you to me."

"Emily, your laughter didn't simply bring me to you – it drew me to you."

"I have another secret I could tell you." I'd heard myself saying.

"Then that is another secret I will keep and treasure as my own." He'd said.

When I was laughing, I was thinking about how happy I was that you had been at dinner. I had been so terribly nervous before you sat beside me." I'd held my breath, hoping I had not been what Mother would have called too forward with him.

"Well, then, I am very, very pleased to announce that I will be returning to your home for your dinner party Saturday and that I will be escorting a lovely woman with whom I hope you will also become fast friends."

My heart, already so battered and bruised, ached at his words. I was learning the lesson of hiding my feelings well, so I put on the same interested expression and soft voice I used with Father and said, "Oh, how nice. It will be good to see Camille again. You should know she and I are already friends.

"Camille? Oh, you mean Samuel Elcott's daughter, Camille." He'd looked utterly baffled at first and then I could see his expression shift to understanding.

"Well, yes, of course." I'd said, but already my bruised heart was beating more easily.

"Of course? Why do you say _'of course'?"_

"I thought it was understood that you were interested in courting Camille." I'd said.

Then I felt my heart become lighter and lighter as he shook his head and replied with an empathic, "I don't know how something I have no knowledge of could be _understood."_

I'd felt as if I should say something in defence of what I knew would be poor Camille's great embarrassment had she heard Arthur's words.

"I believe the _understanding_ was something Mrs. Elcott was hoping for."

Arthur's dark brows lifted, along with the corners of his lips.

"Well, then let me make _your_ understanding clear. I will be escorting my mother to your dinner party on Saturday, my father's gout is plaguing him, but Mother wishes to attend your first true social event in support of you. She is the friend I was hoping you would make."

"So, you will not be courting Camille?" I'd asked boldly, though breathlessly.

Arthur stood then and smiling, bowed formally to me. In a voice filled with warmth and kindness, he'd announced, "Miss Emily Wheiler, I can assure you it is not Camille Elcott I will be courting. Now I must, reluctantly, bid you a good night until Saturday."

He'd turned and left me breathless with happiness, expectation and it had seemed to me that even the shadows around me reflected my joy with their beautiful, concealing mantle of darkness.

I hadn't spent many more moments revelling in the magical events of the night. Though my heart was filled by Arthur Simpton and I wanted to think of nothing but our wondrous conversation and that he had practically left me with a promise that it would be me he would be courting in the future, my mind was cataloguing the other, less romantic information Arthur had just provided me.

Though my hands shake with joy, safely in my room, I relive through this journal my meeting with Arthur and begin to imagine what a future with his could bring. I must remember to be very quiet when I come to my garden spot.

I must not ever draw anyone _else_ there.


	12. Chapter 11: April 27th 1893

_I begin this journal entry with trepidation._ I can feel myself changing, I hope the change is for the better, but I confess that I am not certain it is. Actually, if I am to write with complete honesty, I must admit that even hope has changed its meaning for me.

I am so confused and so very, very afraid!

Of only one thing am I sure and that is that I must escape Wheiler House by any means possible. Arthur Simpton has provided me a logical, safe escape and I have accepted him.

I am not the giddy child I was five days ago, after that first night Arthur and I spoke. I still find him kind, charming and, of course, handsome. I believe I could love him, a beautiful future is within my grasp, so why is it that I feel a growing coldness within me? Has the fear and loathing I have for Father begun to taint me?

I shudder at the thought.

Perhaps as I review the events of the past days, I will find the answers to my questions.

Arthur's garden visit had, indeed changed my world. Suddenly, the Saturday night dinner party was no longer something I dreaded – it was something I counted down the hours to. I threw myself into the menu, the decorations and every tiny detail of my gown.

What was going to be a five course dinner that I'd uncaringly told Cook to resurrect from one of Mother's old party books utterly changed. Instead, I raked through my memories, wishing I had paid better attention – _any_ attention really – when Mother and Father had discussed the especially sumptuous social dinners they'd attended in the year before she had to withdraw from society because of her pregnancy.

Finally, I recalled how even Father had praised a particular dinner at the University Club that had been sponsored by his bank and held in honour of the exposition architects. I sent Mary, whose sister was one of the University Club's legion of cooks, to get a copy of the menu. Then I was pleasantly surprised when she actually did return with a list of not simply the courses, but the wines that should accompany them. Cook, who I believe until then had mostly pitied and humoured my attempts at menu making, began to look at me with respect.

Next, I changed the table setting and decorations, I wanted to bring the garden inside, to remind Arthur of our time together, so I supervised the gardeners in cutting bushels of fragrant stargazer lilies from our gardens – though not from around the fountain. I also ordered then to gather cattails from the marshy area around the lakeshore, as well as curtains of ivy. Then I set about filling vases and vases with lilies, cattails and trailing ivy, hoping all the while that Arthur would notice.

While I was in the centre of a whirlwind of activity of my own creation, I realized something incredibly interesting – the more demanding I became, the more the people about me complied. Where once I had tiptoes around Wheiler House, the timid ghost of the girl I used to be, now I strode purposefully, calling out commands with confidence.

I continued to learn, this lesson is one I'm finding most important. There may be a better way of ordering the world around me than my mother's way. She used her beauty and her soft, pleasing voice to coax, cajole and get her way. I am discovering that I prefer a stronger approach.

Is that wrong of me? Is that part of the coldness I feel spreading within me? How can gaining confidence and control be wrong?

Whether it was right or wrong, I used my newly discovered knowledge when I chose my gown. Father had, of course, commanded me to wear one of Mother's green velvet gowns again.

I refused.

Oh, I was not foolish enough to refuse him outright. I simply rejected every one of my mother's green velvet dresses Mary offered me, where before she would have insisted until I capitulated, my new attitude and bearing had her befuddled.

"Lass, you must wear one of your mother's gowns. Your father had been quite firm about it." She'd protested one last time.

"I will follow Father's request, but it will be on my own terms. I am the Lady of Wheiler House and not a child's doll to be dressed up." I'd gone to my armoire and pulled from the recesses of it the gown I had planned on wearing for my Presentation Ball. It was cream silk with cascades of embroidered green ivy decorating the skirt. The bodice, though modest, was full, as was the skirt, but the wist was synched tiny, so that my figure became a perfect hourglass and my arms were left alluringly, though appropriately bare. I handed the gown to Mary.

"Take a green velvet sash and bow from one of Mother's dresses. I'll wrap the sash around my waist and stitch the bow to the side of the bodice. Plus, bring me one of her green velvet hair ribbons, I'll war it tied around my neck. If Father objects, I can truthfully tell him that I am, as he asked, wearing Mother's green velvet."

Mary frowned and muttered to herself, but she did as I told her to do, everyone did as I told them to do. Even Father was subdued when I refused to go to the GFWC on Friday, I said that I was simply too busy.

"Well, Emily, tomorrow everything must be just so – just so. Skipping this week's volunteer duties is certainly understandable. It is commendable to see you fulfilling your responsibilities as Lady of Wheiler House."

"Thank you, Father." I'd answered him with the same words I used countless times before, but hadn't softened my tone and dropped my head. Instead, I looked him directly in the eye and added, "I won't be able to dine with you this evening, there is just too much for me to do and time is too short."

Indeed, well, indeed. Be quite certain you make good use of your time, Emily."  
"Oh, do not worry, Father, I will."

Nodding to himself, Father hadn't seemed to notice that I'd left the room before he'd dismissed me.

It had been a delicious luxury to command George to bring a try up to my sitting room Friday evening. I ate in perfect peace, sipped a small glass of wine and recounted the gold-foiled RSVPs – all twenty invitations had, indeed, been accepted.

I had placed the Simpton's reply card on the top of the pile.

Then I lounged on my daybed that sat before my small, third-floor balcony and burned six pillared candlesticks while I leafed through the latest Montgomery Ward catalogue. For the first time I began to believe I might enjoy being Lady of Wheiler House.

 **A.N/ I am so sorry about not updating, I had pretty much all my family over for Christmas and then we went to go visit my 25 year old cousin who lives in Spain. The whole time I have been writing chapters, but I couldn't upload them because my cousin doesn't have internet so I couldn't upload this until now when I just got home. So be expecting another chapter very shortly.**

 **So until next time.**


	13. Chapter 12: April 28th 1893

_Excitement didn't keep me from feeling a dizzying rush of nerves when Carson made his announcement Saturday evening that the guests were beginning to arrive._ I'd taken one final look in the mirror while Mary tied the thin velvet ribbon around my neck.

"You are a great beauty, lass. You will be a success tonight." Mary had told me.

"Yes, I will." I'd lifted my chin and spoke to my reflection, banishing the ghost of my mother.

When I'd reached the landing, Father's back was to me. He was already engaged in an animated conversation with Mr. Pullman and Mr. Ryerson. Carson was opening the front door for several couples. Two women – One I recognized as the rather plumb Mrs. Pullman and the other, a taller, more beautiful woman – were admiring the large central arrangement of lilies, cattails and draping ivy I'd spent so many hours on. Raised in pleasure, their voices had carried easily to me.

"Well, this is quite lovely and unusual." Mrs. Pullman said.

"What an excellent choice to use these lilies. They have filled the foyer with an exquisite scent. The taller woman nodded appreciatively. It is as if we entered a fragrant indoor garden." The taller woman had nodded appreciatively.

I hadn't moved, I'd wanted to take a private moment of pleasure. So, I'd imagined, just for an instant that I was back on my bench in the garden, curtained by willows, cloaked by darkness and sitting beside Arthur Simpton. I'd closed my eyes, drawn a deep breath, inhaling calm and as I released it his voice had lifted to me, as if carried on the power of my imaginings.

"There is Miss Wheiler herself. Mother, I do believe the arrangement you have been admiring shows evidence of her hand."

I'd opened my eyes to gaze down at Arthur, standing beside the beautiful woman I hadn't recognized.

I smiled, said, "Good evening Mr. Simpton." I had begun descending that last flight of stairs. Father had brushed past them and hurried to meet me, moving so quickly that he was puffing with effort when he offered me his arm.

"Emily, I do not believe you have met Arthur's mother, Mrs. Simpton." Father said, presenting me to her.

"Miss Wheiler, you are even lovelier than my son described. This centrepiece arrangement of yours is spectacular. Did you, as my son surmised, create it yourself?" Mrs. Simpton had said.

"Yes, Mrs. Simpton, I did. I am flattered that you admire it." I hadn't been able to stop myself from smiling up at Arthur as I spoke. His kind blue eyes were alight with his own smile – one I was already finding familiar and increasingly dear.

"How would you know created the arrangement?" I'd been stunned by the gruff tone of Father's voice, sure that everyone around us could hear the possessiveness in it.

Nonplussed, Arthur laughed good-naturedly.

"Well, I recognize the stargazer lilies from –"Partway through his explanation he must have seen the horror in my eyes, because he broke off his words with exaggerated cough.

"Son, are you well?" His mother had touched his arm in concern.

Arthur had cleared his throat and regained his smile. "Oh, quite well, Mother, just a tickle in my throat."

"What is it you were saying about Emily's flowers?" Father had been like a bloated old dog with a bone.

Arthur hadn't missed a beat, but had continued smoothly, "Are they Emily's flowers? Then I have made an excellent guess because they instantly reminded me of her. They too, are exceptionally beautiful as well as sweet."

"Oh, Arthur, you do sound more and more like your father every day." Arthur's mother had squeezed his arm with obvious affection.

"Arthur, oh, my! I had hoped you would be here." Camille had rushed up to us, ahead of her mother, though Mrs. Elcott followed so closely on her daughter's heels that it appeared as if she pushed her along.

"Miss Elcott, Mrs. Elcott, good evening. I am escorting my mother as my father is still unwell." Arthur had bowed stiffly, formally.

"What a coincidence! My Camille joins me this evening because Mr. Elcott believes he may be coming down with something. Of course, I so wanted to be sure I was here to support Emily at her first formal dinner as Lady of Wheiler House that I couldn't bear to cancel. Though, sadly I have only daughters and no devoted son. You are a fortunate mother, Mrs. Simpton." Mrs. Elcott had explained with a honeyed tone, but her pinched expression as she cast her gaze from Arthur to me belied her words.

"Oh, I readily agree with you, Mrs. Elcott. He is a devoted and an observant son. We were just discussing that it was he who guessed that these lovely decorations were created by Miss Wheiler herself." Arthur's mother had said with a fond smile.

"Emily, you did that?"

Camille had sounded so shocked that I'd had a sudden urge to slap her. Instead I lifted my chin and did not soften my voice and made little of my accomplishments, as Mother would have.

"Hello, Camille, what a surprise it is to see you. Yes, I did make this arrangement. I also created all of the arrangements on the dining table, as well as those in Father's library."

"You're a credit to me, my dear." Father had said.

I'd ignored him and kept my focus on Camille and very precisely said, "As you and your mother observed during your last visit, I am learning early of what it is to be the Lady of a great house."

I had not added the rest of what Mrs' Elcott had said, _"Which is something my future husband will be glad of."_ I hadn't needed to; I'd simply needed to turn my gaze from Camille to Arthur and then returned the warm smile he'd been beaming at me.

"Yes, well, as I said, you are a credit to me." Father offered his arm to me again; I'd had to take it. He nodded to the Simpton's and Elcott's, saying, "Now we must greet the rest of our guests, Emily, I do not see the champagne being served."

"That is because I chose to follow the University Club's lead with the menu tonight. George will be serving amontillado before the first course instead of champagne. It will pair much better with the fresh oysters."

"Very good, very good, let us find dome of that amontillado, my dear. Ah, I see the Ayers have arrived; there is talk of a permanent art collection for his Indian relics. Which the bank will be very interested in . . ."

"I'd stopped listening, though I allowed Father to lead me away with him. That entire night, as I played the part of hostess and Lady of Wheiler House, I kept always in my mind the hope that Arthur Simpton was noticing. Each time I managed to steal a look at him our eyes met because _'he had been watching me.'_ His smile had seemed to say he had also been appreciating me.

As the evening progressed, I'd understood that, as always, after dinner the men would leave us and retire to Father's library for brandy and cigars. The woman would go to Mother's formal parlor, sip iced wine, nibble on tea cakes and, of course, gossip. I'd dreaded that separation and not simply because Arthur would not be there, but because I had no experience conversing with ladies of my mother's age. Camille was the only one of them within a decade of my age. I'd realized I had a choice to make.

I could sit beside Camille and chatter like I was nothing more than any other young girl or I could truly attempt to be Lady of Wheiler House. I knew I might be treated with condescension, there were after all, great ladies such as Mrs. Ryerson, Mrs. Pullman and Mrs. Ayer present and I was, but a sixteen-year-old girl. As I led the ladies into Mother's parlor and was met with the familiar and soothing scent of the stargazers I had so meticulously arranged, I made my choice.

I did not withdraw to the window seat with Camille and cling to my childhood. Instead, I took Mother's position in the centre of the room on the divan, supervised Mary's refreshing of the ladies wine and tried to hold my chin up and think of something –anything intelligent – to say into the building silence.

Arthur's mother was my salvation.

"Miss Wheiler, I am interested in these unusual bouquet creations you have beautifully displayed in each of the rooms. Would you share with us your inspiration?" She'd asked with a warm smile that had reminded me so much of her son's.

"Yes, dear, the decorations are quite cunning. You must share your secret with us." I'd been amazed to hear Mrs. Ayer say.

"I was inspired by Wheiler garden and by the fountain at its heart. I wanted to bring the lily scent, the water imagery and my favourite tree, the willow, inside tonight."

"Oh, I see! The cattails evoke the presence of water." Mrs. Simpton had said.

"The trailing ivy is arranged much like the fronds of a willow. That was an excellent idea." Mrs. Ayer had said, nodding in obvious appreciation.

"Emily, I haven't known you to be particularly fond of the garden. I thought you and Camille were much more concerned with bicycling and the latest Gibson Girl styles than gardening." Mrs. Elcott had spoken with the exact tone of condescension I had been dreading.

For a moment I said nothing, there had seemed to be a breathless silence in the room. As if the house itself awaited my response, would I be a girl or a lady?

I straightened my back, lifted my chin and met Mrs. Elcott's patronizing gaze.

"Indeed, Mrs. Elcott, I have enjoyed bicycling and Gibson Girl styles, but that was when my mother, your particular friend, was Lady of Wheiler House. She is deceased, I have had to step into her role and I find that I must be concerned with things that are not so girlish." I'd heard clucks of concern and several of the women whispered _"The poor thing."_

That further emboldened me and I'd realized how I could use Mrs. Elcott's condescension to my favour. I'd continued, "I know I cannot hope to be as great a lady as Mother was, but I have resolved to be my best. I can only hope that Mother is looking down on me with pride." I'd sniffed delicately and used my lace napkin to dab the corners of my eyes.

"Oh, you sweet girl. As your father said earlier, you are a credit to your family. Your mother and I were not well acquainted, but I am a mother with daughters of my own, so I feel confident when I say that she would be very proud of you, very proud indeed!" Mrs. Simpton had patted my shoulder.

Then each of the ladies, in turn, consoled me and assured me of their admiration, each of the ladies except Mrs. And Miss Elcott. Camille and her mother said little for the rest of the evening and were the first of my guests to leave.

As hour or so later, when the men came to collect their women, conversation flowed in my parlor as freely as brandy had obviously flowed in Father's library. Our guests bade us effusive well nights, praising everything about the evening.

Arthur and his mother were the last to depart.

"Mr, Wheiler, it has been quite some time since I have had such an agreeable evening. I do so appreciate it, as I have been uncommonly worried about my good husband's health, but your daughter was such an attentive hostess that I feel my spirits have been lifted." Mrs. Simpton told Father, as he bowed to her.

"Pleasantly said, pleasantly said." Father had slurred, weaving a little as he stood beside me just within the foyer.

"Please, Madam, send Mr. Simpton my best wishes for a swift recovery." I'd said, holding my breath in hopeful anticipation of her next words.

"Well, you must call on Mr. Simpton yourself!" Arthur's mother had exclaimed, just as I'd wished her to.

"You would be such a lovely diversion for him, especially as he desperately misses our two daughters. They are both married and remained in New York with their husband's families."

"I would enjoy calling on you very much." I'd said, touching Father's arm and adding, "Father, do you not think it would be a kindness to visit Mr. and Mrs. Simpton, as he has been so unwell?"

"Yes, yes, of course." Father had said, nodding dismissively.

"Excellent, then I shall send Arthur around with our carriage on Monday afternoon."

"Arthur, the carriage? I do not –"Father had begun, but Mrs. Simpton had interrupted, nodding her head as if she agreed with whatever edict he was getting ready to speak.

"I do not like the current craze of young people bicycling everywhere, either. Plus those bloomers girls are wearing – atrocious!" Mrs. Simpton had levelled her gaze on her son. "Arthur, I know that you are fond of your bicycle, but Mr. Wheiler and I insist his daughter travels in a more civilized manner. Do we not, Mr Wheiler?"

"Indeed, bicycles are not appropriate for ladies." Father had agreed.

"Precisely, so my son will take the carriage for Miss Wheiler on Monday afternoon. It is well decided, good night!" Mrs. Simpton had taken her son's arm. Arthur bowed formally to Father, bidding him good night. When he turned to me his bow was just s formal, but his gaze met mine and his quick wink was for me alone.

As soon as the door closed I went into action. I'd recognized Father's weaving and slurring. My heart was too filled with the success of the evening and the obvious attentions being paid to me by Arthur and his mother. I'd not wanted to take any chance that Father would ruin my happiness with his alcohol breathe, his hot, heavy hands and his burning gaze.

"I'll wish you a good night now, Father." I'd said with a quick curtsey.

"I must see that everything is back in its proper place tonight and it is already so late. Carson! Please help Father to his bedchamber!" I'd called and then had breathed a great sigh of relief when Father's valet hurried into the foyer.

Then I'd turned, with purposeful, confident strides and retreated from the room.

Father hadn't called me back!

I'd been so giddy with victory that I practically dance into the dining room where, just as I'd already directed, George was putting everything back in order.

"Leave the flower arrangements, George. The scent really is spectacular." I'd directed him.

"Yes, Miss."

Mary was tidying the parlor.

"You can leave that for now. I'd rather have you help me out of this gown, I am exhausted."

"Yes, Miss," Had been her response, as well.

Had I actually ended the night after Mary had helped me into my sleep chemise? I would be recording that as the most perfect evening of my life. Sadly, I was too restless for sleep – too restless to even write of the evening's events in my journal. I'd craved the comfort of my sweet, familiar garden and the soothing touch of the darkness that brought me a special sense of calm.

"I'd wrapped my night robe round me and on slippered feet I'd padded silently, swiftly down the wide stairway. I heard the servants distantly in the kitchen, but no one saw me as I slipped from the house and into my gardens.

It had been late – much later than I usually ventured outside, but the moon was more than half full and my feet knew their way, my willow awaited me. Under its curtained darkness I curled up on the marble bench, gazed at the fountain and then like each memory was a jewel, I sifted through the events of the evening.

Arthur Simpton's mother had made it clear that she prefers me! It had even seemed that she and her son were in cahoots and that they worked together to slip around Father's possessive disapproval.

I'd wanted to stand, dance and laugh with joy, but Arthur had taught me a valuable lesson. I had no intention of anyone, not even one of the servants, discovering my special place, so I remained quietly on the bench and imagined myself dancing and laughing in joy under my willow tree. I promised myself than that someday I would be Lady of my own great house and my Lord and husband would have kind blue eyes and a warm smile.

As I write this, remembering the evening, I do not believe my manipulations malicious. Arthur and his mother had paid me special attention. Was it wrong that I wanted to use their affections to escape a situation I was finding more and more difficult to bear?

The answer I find is, no. I would be good to Arthur and I would be close to his mother. I was not doing an evil act by encouraging the Simptons.

I digress, I must continue to report the horrific events that followed.

That night, the comfortable shadows beneath my willow tree had worked their usual magic. My mind had ceased its whirring and I'd felt a lovely sleepiness come over me. Almost as if I was in a waking dream, I'd slowly, languidly, left the gardens and made my way back through the dark, silent house. I was yawning widely when I reached the second floor landing, I'd covered my mouth to stifle the sound when Father stepped from the unlit hallway.

"What are you doing?" His words were rough and came to me on a wave of brandy and garlic.

"I-I just wanted to be sure everything was set to rights before I went to sleep. All is well, though, so good night, Father." I'd turned and tried to continue up the stairs when his heavy hand caught my arm.

"You should have a drink with me, it would be good for your hysteria."

I'd stopped moving the instant he'd touched me, afraid if I began to struggle away from him, he would only grasp all the tighter to my arm.

"Father, I do not have hysteria, I only have weariness. The dinner party has tired me greatly and I need to sleep now."

Even on the dim landing I could see the intensity of his eyes as his hot gaze took in my loosened night robe and free-falling hair.

"Is that Alice's robe you're wearing?"

"No, this is my robe, Father."

"You did not war one of your mother's dresses tonight." His hand had tightened on my arm and I knew there would be bruised shadows there the next day.

"I refashioned one of Mother's dresses so that it fit me. That is probably why you didn't recognize it." I'd said quickly, sorry that I had been so stubborn – so vain – and that I had given him an excuse to focus his attention one me.

"Your figures are very similar, though." He'd lurched toward me, closing the space between us and making it think with alcohol fumes and sweat.

Panic lent my voice strength and I spoke more sharply than I have ever heard any woman speak to him. "Similar, but not the same! I am your daughter, not your wife. I bid you to remember that Father."

He'd stopped moving toward me then and blinked, as if he couldn't quite focus on me. I used his hesitation to pull my arm from his loosened grasp.

"What is it you're saying?"

"I am saying good night, Father." Before he could grab me again I'd turned, lifted my skirt and raced up the stairway, taking the steps two at a time. I did not stop running until I closed the door to my bedroom and leaned against it. My breath had been short and my heart had been beating frantically. I was sure, quite sure that I heard his heavy feet following me and I'd stood, trembling, afraid to move, even after all sounds outside my room went quiet.

My panic finally subsided and I'd gone to my bed, pulling the covers around me, trying to still my thoughts and find the calm within me again. My eyelids had just begun to flutter when there was a heavy footstep outside my room. I burrowed farther down within my bed sheets and watched, wide eyed as the doorknob slowly and silently turned. The door opened a crack and I squeezed my eyes closed, held my breath and imagined with my entire mind that I was back on the bench under the willow tree, safely cloaked in the comforting shadows.

I knew he entered my room, I am sure of it. I could smell him, but I remained perfectly silent, not moving, imagining I was hidden completely in darkness. It seemed a very long time, but I did hear my door reclose. I'd opened my eyes to find my room empty, though scented with brandy, sweat and my fear. Hastily I'd gotten out of bed, barefoot and I used all of my strength to push and drag my heavy chest of drawers in front of my door, barricading the entrance.

Still I did not allow myself to sleep until dawn lightened the sky and I heard the servants begin to stir.


End file.
